


Hope Is Strong But Misery Is a Little Quicker

by orphan_account



Series: Battle Scars [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 084s, Adventure, Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Ari knows everybody, Avengers - Freeform, F/M, Flash-backs, Foreshadowing, Friendship, Inhumans (Marvel), LA, Mystery, Post-Season/Series 02 Finale, Quinjet, Secrets, Strong Language, Trouble, Truth, connecting character, important original female character, melinda may's holiday, plots within plots, potential s3 divergence (most likely), the Rising Tide - Freeform, the big wide Marvel Universe, the sense of impending doom, who took baby Daisy away?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-09 09:55:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 49,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4344011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whilst busy relaxing and recharging after a hell of a few weeks, months, years - whatever - Melinda May gets a visit from an old friend who she hasn't seen nor heard of since long before the Battle of New York. With the unsettling premonition that something is so terribly wrong, Melinda heads back to base to find out just how correct she is ...<br/>With Skye - sorry, Daisy - acting as her 'man on the inside' to keep watch on a despondent Coulson, Melinda leaves SHIELD behind as she searches for the one person who may have all the answers, unaware that she's left her best chance at finding this person stuck behind in the Playground.<br/>As always, events play out that could not have been predicted as secrets long buried start to come to light.</p><p>What happens next will determine the fate of not just Earth, but the entire universe as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Something's Wrong

**Author's Note:**

> so. hello there.  
> I feel like i'm feeling my way in the dark; unsure quite where i'm going with this. please bare with me. I find it hard to put what i'm thinking down onto paper - or the screen. but i hope that you are interested in where this is heading and join me as i try to figure it all out. it'll be a journey that's for sure.  
> lemme know what you think? please? :)  
> the title is from the song 'Battle Scars' by Paradise Fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whilst On Holiday, May Gets A Surprise Visitor ...

“Red?”

Melinda May blinked and opened her eyes, pulling down the sunglasses to the edge of her nose so she could peer over the top of them. She didn’t bother sitting up off the sun-lounger; it was far too comfortable and relaxing after the hell of a few weeks, months – years even – that she’d been having. A welcome break, a chance to sit back and reset, in all the chaos that seemed to surround her rather hectic and dramatic life.

A break that, judging by the appearance of the individual now blocking her sun, was about to be rudely interrupted.

It should be noted how peeved Melinda was at the sudden appearance of this individual – not solely because of their appearance, but because Melinda hadn’t seen nor heard from this individual since they had dealt with the aftermath of the Widow defecting to Shield a good ten years or more ago now. And considering all that happened (or not happened) in the time since, the unexpected and unexplained silence had cut like a knife … Melinda hadn’t realised just how deeply that had cut at her until now.

She had thought they were friends.

So perhaps peeved wasn’t the right word.

Pissed. Livid.

Or somewhere in between the two words, because – well. There was too much history between the two of them for such words as livid. A wise man once said ‘hate is too strong a word to waste on someone you don’t like’ … Melinda didn’t know which wise old man – or even if it had been a wise old man who’d said it. It may have been a woman – a wise old woman … or a child or anyone really. But still. The words were true. And as much as she was annoyed and pissed off at the individual casting a large shadow and obscuring her sun, it wasn’t as though Melinda wasn’t aware that there was no doubt a perfectly good reason for her friend’s sudden absence in her life. A friend who probably wouldn’t be her friend if she ever found out how and why they knew each other. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it just yet. It seemed much easier to be angry and annoyed and pissed rather than hear the perfectly constructed excuses – sorry, reasons – that would instantly have Melinda in faultless understanding.

But maybe her irritability was simply due to her lack of sunlight and the interruption to her break. She replaced her sunglasses, closing her eyes again and sighed heavily to show her annoyance at the unwelcome disturbance.

“What?”

“You never wear red. Thought we agreed that it matched my complexion far better than yours.”

“Your point?” Melinda asked, her voice tight with ever growing frustration. It was easy to allow herself to get riled up and pissed off at her friend. Especially after not having any contact – or even knowing if she was alive – for three years. But then Melinda reflected that on balance, it was just as easy to let such comments roll off her back and bounce off her harmlessly. Because that’s all they were. Harmless.

“Do I need one?”

Always a response. Always a remark. Always something ready to fire back without a beat.

“Yes. Because if you don’t hurry up and make it, I’ll break your neck.”

“You’ll try to break my neck.”

“I’ll succeed at breaking your neck.”

Really? Melinda didn’t know why she let herself fall into these little traps.

“For about ten minutes you’ll have succeeded. Until my bones reconnect and my tissue reknits itself back together.”

“Oh fuck me! You win.”

“What is it with you lot and needing to win all the time? There’s more to life than winning y'know.”

Melinda sighed heavily through her nose. Her inner peace – which had taken a fair amount of meditation and forced relaxation – was in jeopardy here: she was about three seconds short of punching someone in the face and permeantly rearranging their features there. Of course her primary target, as had just been stated, would only be injured for a matter of minutes until the freak of nature’s advance healing abilities kicked in and rectified the problems. Melinda was being a little harsh here because her friend wasn’t actually a freak of nature … alien was a more apt terminology to use. Not human.

“Just spit it out.”

“Is it the heat? Making you pissy as fuck?”

Melinda yanked her sunglasses off and glared up, squinting her eyes at the sun, a harsh retort on her lips. But no one was there.

“What the fuck?”

Sitting up and swinging her legs over the edge of the lounger, the warm white sand soft on her feet and her toes dug into the slightly cooler sand under the surface as she stood upright. There were impressions in the sand, but indecipherable – the type made either by feet or from the natural ever-changing nature of the ground, it was impossible to tell. Looking round, all Melinda could see was a beech full of families and couples relaxing in the heat and sun; no sign of her irritable disturbance. Had she just dozed off and imagined the whole thing? But why? Why would she imagine someone whom she’d not heard from or spoken to in years, especially when sed person was likely to kill her when she discovered the truth of how and why they had met ...

Weariness settled over Melinda as she sat back down on the lounger. What the actual fuck? Unease followed her wariness. A prickling on the back of her neck. What had been the point of the conversation – because Melinda was certain now that it hadn’t been a dream or hallucination: the visit and conversation – however brief – had been real. But its purpose … Melinda struggled to figure it out. Why? What had been the point … just a little ‘hey yeah I’m still alive Mel don’t forget me’ thing? Or had it served some other, greater, purpose?

The kind of greater purpose she wasn’t sure she believed in …?

Well whatever it was – one thing was for sure and that was that Melinda’s break was over. All that relaxation and peace she’d gained from this break was gone in the wake of the visit – or whatever: tension seeped back into Melinda, tension she’d worked so hard trying to rid herself of, as an unease crept over her.

Something was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

The problem was, Melinda didn’t know what. All she knew – and maybe that had been the whole point of the little stupid weird incident – was that there was something drastically wrong. Or that something was _going_ to be drastically wrong. Groaning, she replaced her sunglasses over her eyes and gathered her few belongings, wrapped in a sunset orange towel, before getting up and glancing round again. Sighing, Melinda May made her way to the beach-front hotel that she was staying at, pausing and yanking out a summer dress to pull on – a dress she’d never be caught dead in – so that the shirtless men hanging out by the entrance didn’t get the wrong idea. Looked like her little holiday was over: time to get back to work. And fast. Preferably before the shit Melinda could almost taste getting ready to happen and fuck up their lives – again – hit the fan.

If only it were that easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: while re-reading this chapter to help get a feel for the story again in the hopes my writersblock will shift, i found myself shuddering at the way in which my mysterious character is speaking. lots of apostrophes and missing vowels and urgh ... it felt like a good idea at the time but it's a pain to write makes me shudder so i'm changing it. sorry not sorry.
> 
> (for any new readers, don't worry it's not important)


	2. Dull Reading

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson Reads Some Boring Reports ...

**MISSION REPORT**

**_Operation: Project Romeo, Assignment #27_ **

**Account:** Intel was inaccurate and incomplete. Our own findings were enough to discover the shortcomings of the information we received and to allow us to continue. Questions arose from certain agents as to the reliability of the contact. We proceeded with caution to the facility which we swiftly discovered had been deserted and appeared to be empty. It is to be suggested that our contact alerted the compound to our imminent arrival. Further investigation proved that there was nothing remaining to provide any insight as to what the facility had been purposed for. However Agent Hunter did stumble across a sealed container which looks promising. Efforts to open the container proved fruitless at the scene – opinion from agents is that the container went unnoticed. As for what may be inside is a mystery as there is no indication from the outside. Following past events we agreed to treat the container as we would an 084, complying with the appropriate protocols. Upon the completion of a sweep of the facility performed by Trainee Agent Campbell and his SO, providing us with nothing more, other than a few drawings that appear to have been the creativeness of a child, the sounds of sirens could be heard heading towards the warehouse. Again suggestions and accusations arose pertaining to our contact as to the loyalty. We exited the compound via the various exits – Agent Michael used the fire escape, which collapsed under his weight; we found him on the ground with his neck broken and his thigh impaled by a shard of the metal. Dead. Due to the proximity of the local authorities, we were forced to leave his body behind. It should be noted here that Agent Michael has a young son and a pregnant wife, and that his death should be broken to them before the local authorities get there first. While it appeared and sounded as though the fire escape collapsed under Agent Michael, foul play and sabotage cannot be and should not be ruled out.

 **Conclusion:** Op. was a bust. Lost more than was gained. Whatever is inside the 084 container doesn’t make the death of Agent Michael worthwhile, regardless of how promising it looks. Agent Hunter wants it noted that he cannot shake the feeling that we were set up.

 **Suggested Action:** Send a team to retrieve the body of Agent Michael and return it to his family. Agent Campbell requested that he inform the family and permission to talk to the replacement so that full awareness of what is going to be risked is given and received. Suggest it is allowed, with the view of having Agent Johnson on hand so classified information is not leaked.

 **Reporting Agent** : Barbra Morse

* * *

Director Phil Coulson dropped the report onto his desk with a sigh and closed his eyes. Leaning back in his high backed leather chair, he hooked two fingers round the collar of his shirt and tugged before giving in and unbuttoning the top button allowing his neck and throat to breathe. Fingers curled round the knot of his tie and tugged it loose enough to slip over his head; the material caught on the underside of his left ear causing him to wince, though it didn’t hurt. Habit had him lifting his left hand to assist in the removing of his tie, his arm and shoulder stopping at the correct distance for his hand to take hold of the material and lift it free from his ear – but of course he didn’t have a hand. Didn’t have most of a forearm either.

At night he would wake in a cold sweat; his fingers having curled round the crystal and a moment’s relief before the inevitable. Strangely he hadn’t really felt all that bothered by what was going to happen. It just was. Then Mack was there with his axe. Without even a second’s warning he swung it wide over his shoulder in a strong arc that ended with the blade successfully slicing, chopping, through flesh and bone in time to prevent the creeping disintegration of death claim him. That was when he’d wake up. Sitting bolt upright, his chest heaving and sweat drenching his skin, panting for air. And for a few moments, while he was still reeling from the nightmare, he’d believe that was all it had been. A dream. Until cold reality crept in as inevitable as that crystal’s curse. He would look tentatively down at his left arm, hoping – so desperately hoping – that he’d see his hand clenched into a tight fist in his lap.

Only a pale and scared stump roughly at the midpoint of the length of his forearm. Paled and pitiful. A curved scar where the skin had been yanked and forced together for Simmons to stitch it and force it to fuse. Absently he would pick at the stitches before remembering the sharp reprimand from Skye from when she caught him doing it. At the moment the stump of an arm was in a sling and he’d buttoned his jacket over the top so that no one, even him, had to be reminded of it.

Opening his eyes, Phil looked down at the pile of reports he still had to read. They’d been piling up all week and he hadn’t had a chance, or lack of distraction, to get round to reading them yet. So here he was; it was a quarter to eleven in the evening and the rest of the team was busy doing – well whatever they were doing. He didn’t have all the reports to read but the more pressing and concerning reports – his senior agents (those who’d been co-in-charge with Gonzales) had reviewed and passed on to him issues that they felt the Director needed to get directly involved in. He half believed that they were giving him so much to do because they didn’t agree with him being in charge.

Sighing again, Phil picked up another report.

* * *

  **INCIDENT REPORT**

**_Date: May-12-2015_ **

**Account:** Security Video Footage 66-9-0Jh-Z.

 **Conclusion** : The Kree Rock is dangerous and must be contained.

 **Suggested Action** : All further interaction with the Kree Rock must be immediately terminated permeantly. Cannot risk losing any more agents into its depths. Too much risk to continue experimenting with it. Our instruments may have triggered the change in the state of the Kree Rock. The risk of the unknown presented will increase with continued exposure and interaction; the missing agents are lost, most likely dead. Suggested action - Lock the door and throw away the key. More harm than good will come from the Rock.

 **Reporting Agent** : Weaver

K-R-033-77-ILd.

* * *

Phil didn’t need to look up the corresponding video footage. He’d seen it so many times it was committed to memory. Every detail. He’d spent hours watching and re-watching the video, but however many times he’d watched it – Phil knew that Fitz had seen it as many times again. Nothing could dissuade the engineer from his quest to bring Simmons back. Unfortunately there was also to consider the danger of continued interaction with the big ugly unknowable Kree Rock, as Agent Weaver had indicated.

Instinct was to order every available resource he could get his hands on to pursue the question of the Kree Rock until a solution presented itself and they got back Simmons and the other twenty-four agents that had been consumed before her. The code tagged on the bottom of the report – K-R-033-77-ILd – was a key that linked together all similar reports. Twenty-five in total that they were aware of, at least. Who knew how many more people had been consumed by it before it fell into their possession? Phil seemed to feel that ‘consumed’ was the best word to use here. Consumed or absorbed … either way that was what it looked like when the Rock inexplicably shifted form and stole an un-expecting agent from the face of the earth.

 _Lock the door and throw away the key_.

That sentence made Phil angry. How could Agent Weaver be so callous as to condemn those twenty-four agents and Simmons to whatever fate the Kree Rock had in store for them? And in his heart, Phil knew that, as Director, he couldn’t get so overly involved with his agents: that he had to see them for what they were to SHIELD – tools. Weapons. But the problem was Phil couldn’t distance himself and didn’t want to. It was an either or job – either he made those decisions and didn’t cry over the outcomes at night when an agent died, or he stepped down and let someone else take the reins.

If anything it was finding that line between being the agent and the man. The higher up he climbed SHIELD’s ladder, the more and more he felt the man being taken over by the agent. And it didn’t really matter so much because he knew who he was and what he was and where he stood and what he was meant to do. He had perfected the balance, the right ratio of agent to man that he was happy to be.

And then he died.

Then he died and came back and a few months later it was like hell on earth. Hell on earth and he was now expected to maintain order in all that shit. Being Director meant sacrificing the man he was for the greater good. And while he didn’t have much issue with that, his team seemed to – particularly Skye and May. They seemed not to like the fact he was becoming less and less of himself with each decision, with each action, with each order issued. And of course there wasn’t much that could be done about it – unless one of them wanted to step up and somehow Phil doubted either of them would.

Setting down the report, Phil checked his watch and turned to another.

* * *

**MISSION REPORT**

**_Operation: Reconnaissance – Hydra Base South Africa_ **

**Account:** Intel was correct. Found the base off a side street; the front of a shop selling tobacco and beer is the entrance. Spotted several Hydra going in and out – including Ward. Went in after him but no one was there. Must be some secret passage round the back. Shop keeper is probably Hydra; got thrown out when started asking where Ward went. Hung around waiting but nobody else came in or out. Agent Skye decided we should get back before we were outnumbered. Apparently she didn’t want to draw attention to the fact we were there, not that they hadn’t already figured it out by that point so she could’ve used her powers and earthquaked the hell out of Ward.

 **Conclusion:** Urm … kill him? Fast.

 **Suggested Action:** Get May’s ass back here.

 **Reporting Agent:** Lance Hunter

* * *

 _Get May’s ass back here_.

Interesting and tempting sentiment. Certainly was a viable option. But May was on holiday and she sorely needed the break; he wasn’t going to bring her back until before she was ready. Not even for a glimpse of Grant The Absolute Psychopath Ward. But it was good to know that there was – or had been now – a Hydra base of operations in South Africa. Maybe by the time May got back it would be safe to go and raid it.

Phil unbuttoned his jacket, set aside the report on the small ‘read’ pile, and picked up another report to read and wrap around his brain. The size of the pile that he still had to read was almost a mountain.

* * *

**MISSION REPORT**

**_Operation: Yellow Echo Sierra Tango Echo Romeo – Delta Alpha Yellow_ **

**Account:** ~~Agent Donald Harris~~ remained in contact via radio upon entering the building. He made it through security and had reached the lower basement to where intel stated the ~~weapon~~ was stored. However it was at that point that communications were scrambled and cut. Orders from HQ issued and a foray into the ~~bank~~ made; clearing security as ~~Agent Harris~~ before us, ~~the agent’s body was found laying abandoned along the corridor outside the Vaults.~~ No sign of a struggle nor a fight. ~~Agent Harris~~ appeared not to have drawn his firearm nor seen his attacker. Proceeding to the ~~Vault~~ , it was ~~found open and empty with no sign of the weapon or it’s container.~~

_It is to be noted that ~~Agent Harris~~ was killed during his solo mission and therefore an accurate account of what transpired is likely never to come to light. However as much detail of the operation has been recorded as it is known; ~~Agent Harris~~ was in contact with his partner running back-end four streets over._

**Conclusion:** No hints nor clues as to who or whom got there first. ~~No leads as of yet.~~ Someone either knew the Op was going ahead and ~~leaked the information~~ or was there first by coincidence. Unlikely.

 **Suggested Action:** ~~Review personnel and security risks. There is a mole.~~

 **Reporting Agent:** Frank Jones ~~~~

* * *

Phil frowned. Why was he reading this report? It was … he checked the time stamp … dated six years back; _27 May 2009_. So why on earth was it in his ‘to read’ pile? What relevance – if any – did this old report have on the week’s missions? The stupid assholes hadn’t even bothered to find him the un-redacted version of the report! But he figured that perhaps it had somehow – miraculously – got muddled up with the others.

Phil shrugged and tossed it onto the pile that was growing slowly but surely and picked up another.

* * *

  **MISSION REPORT**

**_Operation: Cut Off The Head_ **

**Account:** Target terminated.

 **Conclusion:** Dead.

 **Suggested Action:**  Keep him that way.

 **Reporting Agent:** Beta-STRIKE-3

* * *

Ah yes. Fury had given him a heads up about STRIKE Team Beta and its primary function; his one-eyed SO had gotten in contact and told him about the team he’d given virtually free rein to. Phil had had to steer SHIELD away from the cases at times so as not to get involved. Not that he was concerned about Beta-STRIKE getting caught. They were all too good for that – which was half the reason Fury had picked them.

As for who was on the team, Phil had his suspicions but left it at that. Somethings he didn’t need to know and this was one of them. If his team ever encountered Beta-STRIKE, well then he figured he’d just deal with that when it happened … if it happened. Placing the report, short and sweet as it was, down on his ‘read’ pile, he picked up another lengthier report to run his gaze over.

Phil gave up reading the reports after about ten more, all with varying degrees of interest and urgency to them. Several of the reports mentioned – or requested – the need for May to get her ass back and soon … mainly from Hunter. Seemed the guy didn’t like the idea of her having a break and enjoying herself when he didn’t get one too. Or that he really wanted May back in the hopes she would be able to do something permanent about Grant Ward. Why it had to be May though … Phil knew that there were a number of agents who were capable of taking out that ass and he suspected that Hunter may be one of them.

If the guy got his shit together that is.

Groaning, the Director settled back in his seat and stared up at the ceiling, noting absently that he ought to get the long-handled broom out and dust away at those cobwebs clinging to the lamps. The soft delicate strands wafted in the non-existent breeze, inexplicably. Fitz or some other member of the science division could probably explain it to him – in fact he could probably come up with a perfectly reasonable explanation himself if pressed. His own movement displacing the air particles and causing a disturbance that caused the lightweight dusty cobwebs to float gently as if suspended in water. There. That even sounded marginally intelligent and science-y.

Phil had just decided to head to bed when Mack and Lincoln burst unceremoniously into his office – he’d assumed everyone was asleep by now, at thirty nine minutes past midnight. Clearly not. And from the looks of their flushed faces, something had happened. Chests heaving, eyes wild they appeared not to know what to say – as if someone had yelled at them to go get the Director and the pair of them had complied at once before really knowing why it was so urgent.

“S-sir … it’s – um …”

“Down in the – the …”

“You’re n-needed right – right like …”

“Like now.”

“Yeah.”

“Like _right now._ ”

“Not even –

“Problem is um … well it’s I guess it’s …”

Phil held up his Finger of SilenceTM and uttered a single word, hastily shrugging off his jacket so it didn’t get in the way. Mack’s eyes drifted to the sling his left arm – or what remained of it – was suspended in but said nothing. “Where?” They stammered that they would show him and the three men bustled out of the office as the clock ticked later and later. Phil really needed some sleep but as Director he was learning that he wasn’t entitled to getting much, if any at all.

As Lincoln and Mack led him through the Playground’s corridors, he found himself thinking, rather morbidly, _here we go again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you didn't already figure it out - it's a filler chapter. Don't worry, things should pick up soon once I've got my feet underneath me a bit


	3. Half a Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson Is Grumpy & May Returns To Base ...

Twenty-six.

That was the number of agents that the stupid Kree Rock had consumed and absorbed.

Twenty-fucking-six.

Phil looked resolutely away from Fitz and Skye in particular as he issued his commands. Agent Weaver gave a nod of approval and he resisted the urge to snap and state that he didn’t need any kind of approval from her and that even without her Incident Report he’d probably be ordering this very course of action. An empathy for Fury welled up inside him – why didn’t anyone _listen_ and do as they were fucking told? It wasn’t hard. Phil recalled how easy it was to follow orders, how uplifting in a way that it was, knowing that you could leave the decisions up to other people and just do as they had decided was best.

He watched as the room was evacuated and sealed. The tall window-walls giving a clear enough view into the now sealed-off space that a live security feed wasn’t strictly necessary. Phil ordered one installed anyway. The key was given over to his keeping and the codes were a string of random numbers he forgot almost as soon as he’d input them into the pad. Not that anyone really needed to know that just then. If something came up then Phil was sure Skye could hack into the computer and release the doors … or that Mack and Fitz could come up with some kind of explosive to break it open if it came to that. That was, of course, providing his Director’s Override didn’t work.

However Phil did input the base code to activate the alarm system that was linked to his phone. It would blare and alert him if anyone tried or succeeded in opening the doors. He had a number of rooms and doors sealed off in this manner across the Playground – and indeed worldwide. All of them would set off the alarm on his phone if they were disturbed in any fashion; a blinking label would tell him which door it was, where the door was and a reminder of what was behind it and why he’d had it sealed and personally alarmed.

Swallowing his sigh, Phil turned on his heel and marched off back to his office, ignoring the yells from Skye and Hunter about how could he do this? How could he just lock the problem away and ignore it? Didn’t they know that the thing was too dangerous to continue experimenting and measuring and – well whatever-ing the science lot did to try and figure out what it was? Phil didn’t _want_ to abandon those twenty-six agents, but for the foreseeable he didn’t have any other course of action that he could take. The safety of the personnel at the Playground was paramount and had to come first and above any plans or theories that would potentially set off the damn Rock again.

No doubt Skye would be on his case tomorrow. Probably would come storming into his office and start yelling about how he was being an ass and all that … but really? She needed to realise that he was the _Director_. The man in charge. The big boss. Problem was he didn’t elicit the same kind of fear that Fury had done; if it came down to it Skye would have no issue in overpowering him. Phil sighed and wondered how Fury had maintained his cool and his authority in the presence of the Avengers … maybe he’d agree to lessons? Because Phil really did want to be able to order Skye and her friends to do their jobs without fear of having his balls vibrated off or something.

The agent vs the man. An age old question it seemed. His problems lay in the small fact that he was unwilling to accept that his active involvement was now over; that his task and roll now lay firmly behind a desk, or strolling around a command deck. Phil couldn’t give up the field. His arguments – internal or otherwise – were along the lines of Peggy Carter, who frequently disappeared for secret missions and what not whilst running an intelligence agency. True she had Stark and the other co-founders to help her and hold the fort while she ‘dealt with the matter herself’. In fact there wasn’t a lot that Peggy couldn’t do and the more he used the argument, the less solid it became, if only because of one simple fact: he most definitely was _not_ Peggy Carter. Even if they did have the same initials.

Another argument was Fury – but then Fury hadn’t really actively gone into the field so much as the field always seemed to come to _him._ The Helicarrier. Various other catastrophes. Hydra.

No. Phil’s main issues lay in his reluctance to let go the agent in favour of the director. The man he had long since given up hope for. His choices weren’t so much between the man or the agent any more, but the agent and the director; see if he was still an agent then he could rework that balance between agent and man, but adding the fact he was now Director threw everything off kilter. He couldn’t let go of the agent so he let go of the man. Shield was everything to him. His life. What hope could a Director of such an organisation have for a personal life – for holidays, birthday dinners … a family? He didn’t even _have_ a family. Once maybe Shield had been his family, but it was hard to be a family with the people he was expected to send forth into certain and inevitable danger. How could he sit and laugh and joke with the people he had to send on suicide missions – not that they always knew sed missions were likely to be so drastically dangerous of course.

He had no time for guilt. He had to think bigger than that. Had the weight of the world on his shoulders – which was more literal than he cared to think about – and such petty problems as personal morality and conscience were irrelevant to the task. When a problem arose he had to fix it. End of. It didn’t matter _how_ and at _what cost_ , it just needed to be done and he was the one who had to decide the particulars of all that. His own view points on right and wrong didn’t and couldn’t play into the matters. Phil couldn’t risk being so naïve and so blind. Their enemies sure as hell weren’t plagued and troubled by those kinds of things so neither should he be.

Pausing at the door to his bunkroom, Phil frowned and then closed his eyes as a wave of guilt and shame washed over him. His head fell against the frame with a _thunk_. He hadn’t even _thought_ to ask the agent’s name. Not that, strictly speaking, the twenty-sixth agent’s name was important, but … well … asking who the agent was would’ve once upon a time, been one of the first things he’d think of to do. Would’ve been his first priority: now though … Phil hadn’t a clue as to the agent’s identity, didn’t know his name – or her name.

Phil felt like the world’s biggest ass. What the rest of the team – and by team he meant those core agents whom he’d recruited onto the BUS those months ago, as well as Hunter, Mack and Bobbi – thought of him … but he couldn’t waste time fretting over what his friends (if he could call them that) thought of him as; they weren’t the one who had to choose between three wrong answers and a disaster. Daily.

But to not even _ask_ the poor agent’s name? In the back of his mind the little voice of objectivity – that sounded remarkably like Fury when he had to state something obvious – pointed out he’d learn the agent’s name when someone filled out the Incident Report and one of the Senior Agents forwarded it to his desk. Not that that made him feel any better of course. Lifting his head off the door frame, Phil Coulson shouldered aside the heavy door and slipped inside before allowing it to swing freely shut with a resounding thud. It wasn’t _quite_ a slam, but near enough. Hopefully it would signify to the pair of agents’ he’d sensed hurrying along the corridor towards him that the Director was not again to be disturbed unless of a world-wide catastrophe – and only then _after_ the Avengers had been suitably alerted.

As he threw back his sheets and began unbuttoning his shirt, Phil resolved to turn that into an official protocol in the morning. He was grateful May wasn’t here right now: she would already have burst through his bunkroom door with a determined expression on her face, the door banging back against the wall as she called him out on his behaviour. And a talk about compassion and morality and the responsibility he had to the wellbeing of his agents was _not_ something he was particularly interested in having. Especially not with Melinda May. He would wind up lashing out at her and saying something that he’d later regret and which pride and stubbornness would not allow him to apologise for.

Struggling with only one hand to get undressed for bed, Phil refused to dwell on May. Things of late had been … difficult. Lies and half-truths and misdirection had poisoned their relationship and tainted the honest friendship they’d once shared. Thing was the only way he could see things resolving between them was if he stepped down from the role of Director. May still wanted him to be her field-partner and seemed to be under the delusion that it was still possible, despite the fact that paperwork and desk time had been increasing in his duties ever since his Level Eight promotion seven years ago.

Bahrain had been their first – and last – mission together after his promotion.

And maybe he had been crazy even then to think that he could still maintain an active presence in the field but he’d sure as hell given it a try. Most agents were grateful to leave the field once they reached Level Eight – moved on to more managerial and supervisory roles; planning and running the missions and operations rather than participating in them. If Bahrain hadn’t gone so spectacularly tits up then Phil guessed he would’ve been an exception to that trend. With May at his side he’d have stayed in the field, would’ve stayed doing the missions rather than sitting back and observing, analysing, supervising them. Sometimes he wondered if Bahrain had messed more than just May up because it was like Phil was adamantly trying to prove that he could do it all, and do it all alone without someone – May – there to watch his back.

Trying to run a top secret intelligence agency, which was still technically a terrorist organisation, to fix the issues and send in the correct and right people to assess, contain and solve as well as often deciding _he_ should take point on sed missions. And one way or another, Phil had to choose. Be the Director. Be the agent. Or be the man. As much as he wished he could, he wasn’t capable of being all three; a combination of two, but not all three. Something had to be sacrificed and it wasn’t going to be the Director or the agent because Shield needed him to be those things too badly. What Shield and the world Shield protected didn’t need was a man with a conscience too soft for the dangerous world that had evolved seemingly from nowhere.

With a final weary sigh, Phil collapsed into bed in the hopes of getting a few hours decent sleep before mayhem broke loose.

* * *

Pacing down the corridors of the playground; Melinda frowned at how empty the place seemed. It was unnatural. Something had happened.

Something had happened and she’d been away on fucking holiday.

Were things really still that bad between them for Phil not to call her? Was he still pissed that she was pissed at him for keeping those secrets? Well she was pissed too now. Again. Because the further into the base she got, the harder it was for her to shake off the feeling that something wasn’t right. Jesus Christ. Was it really too much to ask for him to pick up the phone, call her up and say ‘Sorry – I know you’re having a break; but shit’s still going down. Help.’ Really? A few words – he wouldn’t have had to even speak _to_ her: he could’ve left a message … or hung up immediately after speaking.

If he just -

 _Melinda._  Her own conscience halted her in her tracks. The voice of reason that sounded so much like her S-O’s calm tones. She knew damn well that Phil was never one to let personal issues get in the way of professional matters. Perhaps he had thought he could handle it – whatever it was – without her. He was wrong … but still. Wouldn’t surprise her in the least if that was the case; unfortunately they were both far too stubborn for their own good and unwilling to back down from a fight or confrontation.

“May?”

She blinked and looked round at the sound of her name. Skye was standing in the doorway to the computer suite, a mug of something – probably some of Melinda’s tea – in her hands, and wearing a pair of sweats and a baggy tee. Apparently she was the only one up.

“How was your holiday?”

Melinda ignored the question, dumping her duffle on the floor. “Never mind. Where is everyone? What’s happened?”

Skye frowned. “How’d you know something’s happened?” she asked, suspicion on her face.

Melinda thought it would sound a bit odd if she told her the truth, and was just in the process of making up a convincing lie when that same voice of conscience halted her yet again. This was _Skye_. If she couldn’t tell Skye the truth then who could she trust? Even before she accepted the girl as part of the team – even before she _knew_ the girl, Melinda couldn’t help but instinctively trust her and like her and protect her. Feelings she had fought for a long time before surrendering and accepting that Skye had wormed her way into her heart. Lying to Skye had always felt … wrong. Like she was betraying her in some horrible and unimaginable way. As if the two of them shared some unbreakable bond of undisputed trust and loyalty … So this time, Melinda told her the truth without first bothering to come up with some lie.

“I had a visit from an old friend that put me on my toes and had me jumping at shadows – so to speak. Couldn’t relax because I was convinced something terrible had happened, had gone wrong, so I packed up and came home.”

“Home,” Skye repeated softly, then laughed bitterly. “I guess this is all we have huh? And what a home it is.”

“Skye?” Melinda asked, not quite sure how to phrase what she wanted to say, but asking anyway in that weird language that seemed to have sprung up between the two of them – of half shrugs and sentences meaning different things and questions compromising of a single word with answers of head tilts and eye rolls.

“Nothing,” she said, “Just haven’t been sleeping much. Bad dreams and all that …”

Melinda flashed that understanding – but not pitying – smile and watched Skye’s shoulders slump in response. “Everybody has nightmares,” she added. “Or so my S-O always tried to convince me. The trick is, she said, remembering that fact, because once you remember it, telling someone about it never seems so scary and humiliating. A friend also told me once to remember that everyone is scared of something – that something terrifies even the strongest seeming people.”

Skye relaxed further. “What friend?”

“You wouldn’t know the name. Besides … she’s not so much a friend as – well … it’s complicated.” _To say the least._

Skye raised an eyebrow but said nothing despite the curiosity and annoyance written all over her face. Melinda sighed, deciding to get to the chase. “What happened Skye?”

Setting down her mug, Skye backed into the computer suite and beckoned to Melinda, who followed her inside the darkened room as her young mentee positioned herself in front of the big screen and the gigantic touch-pad table thing that she used to control the information. Like in the Command Centre on the dearly departed BUS. “It’s easier just to show you,” she said, typing in a reference code into the database and pulling up several Incident Reports, all attached with a short video clip. Twenty-six in total.

Skye played them all in order, the recording playing with the corresponding report displayed on the screen beside it allowing Melinda to read through the increasingly short reports. They skipped over the one about Simmons. The final report was time-stamped a mere three hours ago, an Agent Finley had been monitoring the Kree Monolith and then – inexplicably – the thing had tumbled into a mass of liquid-like substance and consumed the poor agent in a matter of seconds. He hadn’t stood a chance. The recording was muted but it was clear he had been screaming for his life.

Melinda’s blood ran cold.

Cursing herself venomously, her mind racing, Melinda’s mind whirred into action. Because there were three people who had used that thing for what it was intended before it had become unusable, and the fourth person who knew about it had assured them that it would be locked away out of sight indefinitely. That efforts to destroy it for good would be of paramount importance and priority. Melinda had to remind herself that her S-O was only human like the rest of them after all. But this – what was happening to the agents – this was new.

And new was dangerous.

“May?”

Skye was watching her, able to tell and determine that Melinda had been thinking. She was able to tell that Melinda had come to some kind of decision; that she had decided on a course of action to take in order to sort this out. Skye could tell that Melinda had some form of a plan.

“What’s Coulson done about this?”

Skye rolled her eyes, her face turning dark. “Locked the door and thrown away the damn key.”

Melinda couldn’t help her own frustration and disappointment seep through her expression. “Great.” The urge to march over to his bunk and kick his ass sideways into next Thursday was very tempting.

“You’re going to do something, right?”

Translation: please do something because something needs to be done and we need Simmons back and Coulson is just being a major ass dick head right now and do something before I try to do something and mess up completely.

“I’m going to try … I – I might know someone. Someone who knows about this kind of stuff and what to do. Someone who’s …” Melinda struggled for the right way to phrase what she wanted to say, without giving away the truths she was keeping; “not from around here.” She was being vague and Skye knew it.

“‘Not from around here’?” Skye repeated, then added under her breath. “Now why does that phrase sound familiar …?” Melinda frowned but didn’t make any indication she’d heard what Skye had said as the young agent-turned-superhero continued. “Someone – what, like an alien from another world? Like Thor?”

It unnerved Melinda at how accurately Skye had guessed – and made her wonder some more about her muttering about the wording sounding familiar … she hesitated, then nodded.

“Sweet. Who?” Nothing really fazed Skye anymore. “The ‘friend’ you keep mentioning? The one who showed up and made you uneasy and hence you being back here?”

Melinda didn’t answer. “Just get me everything you can about that Kree Monolith … and anything else you think will be useful. I need to pack up some stuff.” Melinda turned to leave the suite, to where her duffle lay abandoned in the hallway.

“Okay. Anything else?” Skye called after her.

“Yeah. Find out where my S-O is now.”

“Who’s your S-O?” Skye asked.

Melinda smirked. “You’re a smart girl Skye. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Shutting the door on Skye’s grumblings behind her, Melinda picked up her duffel and headed down the corridors towards the bunks, already running through a mental check-list of things she’d need and need to collect and needed to do. She swiped her lanyard next to the door and waited for the conformation from the electronic automated voice that sounded like JARVIS with a head-cold or Stephan Hawking’s robotic laugh (Agent May, Melin- _da …_ access gra- _nt_ -ed’), and pushed her way inside her bunkroom.

Flicking on the lights, she strode across to the bed and up-ended her bag spilling the contents across the mattress. The usual array of holiday items littered her bed as Melinda righted her duffel, placing it on top of the pile, and turned to her wardrobe where she pulled out of the cupboard some of her tactical gear and shoved it inside: a full set of clothing that she could use as spares if the gear she was going to change into got ruined or damaged. She added some underwear and t-shirts and tank tops along with her more uncomfortable boots and an extra jacket. The only thing she transferred from her holiday items was her pistol.

Melinda scrambled out of her jeans and top and into her tac-gear while cataloguing what she had in various lockers and lock-up across the globe and what she needed from the armoury. Another gun and enough spare ammunition. A knife and rope … some icers …

Pulling on the navy long-sleeved shirt with the thumb holes in the cuffs that she usually used to wear underneath the black leather vest, Melinda tossed her hair back and yanked on her boots before shoving everything else – weapons, belt, vest – into her duffle and exiting her bunkroom. Detouring only to collect an icer and extra rounds, Melinda made her way back to the computer suite where Skye was busy collecting as much of the information Melinda asked for as she could.

“Hey, right. Well, I’ve loaded everything I could find onto this data cloud – gimme your phone?” Melinda said nothing and handed over the device, watching as Skye connected it to the computer with several wires and fiddled about on the keyboard for a few minutes before disconnecting the phone and restarting it. “So you’ll see this icon here?” Skye showed Melinda a new icon on her home screen, “Just tap on that to access all the data. It’ll automatically connect to any Wi-Fi regardless of whether or not the Wi-Fi in question is protected and so long as you’re in satellite range, you’ll have internet even if there’s no Wi-Fi.”

“How does that help?”

“Basically I’ve added another app to your phone that can access this data cloud I created the other day – I was bored. It’s super secure. No one else knows about it. It’ll store all the intel and shit that your or I don’t want Shield knowing we’ve got. It’s protected by an encryption that shouldn’t be detectable and you’ll be able to upload anything to if from anywhere – photos, whatever – and even if you lose the phone, the data will be stored there, all you have to do is use your Shield IDT as a login and voila. You’re S-O is in a care home in DC – I’ve texted you the address but you won’t receive it until you leave the Playground.”

“Impressive.” And it was.

Skye sighed. “If I ask to come with you, you’ll say no won’t you?”

Melinda paused, “I need you here,” she said truthfully. “I need you to keep an eye on Coulson. Keep me informed … it has nothing to do with your competence. You’ve proved time and time again that you don’t need my protection any more. I’m trusting you to do this Skye: I wouldn’t ask otherwise. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you … if I didn’t believe in you.”

“Okay.” Her voice was soft and full of resignation.

“See if you can get Coulson to make a decision about a replacement for his hand.”

She nodded, but her movements were still that of a kid who had just been grounded for not doing homework. “If you open the second app I installed, and keep it running in the background, then you’ll be able to use the phone without it being traced and without anyone detecting it.”

“Thank you.” And she meant it. Though she suspected it was a way for Skye to get hold of her in a way she could be certain Melinda would respond to. Melinda didn’t say anything about that though: she decided it was best to leave somethings unsaid between them and if Skye wasn’t ready to hear what she wasn’t saying then that was okay. And perfectly understandable. Things would take some time to get back to how they had been between them after all …

Skye sat back in her seat, watching Melinda as she checked she had everything she needed. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

 _There’s an awful lot I’m not telling you_ , Melinda thought before she could stop herself. _A lot I’m not telling anyone._ “I know … but it’s difficult to explain.”

“You could try. I know you know more about that Kree Rock thing than you’re letting on.”

“You’re too perceptive for your own good.”

Skye grinned. “Well?”

It hung there between them. Words dripped off the tip of Melinda’s tongue, heavy with truth and with words that Melinda knew would change everything. “Just trust me,” she said lamely. “It’s complicated and I … just be patient okay? I’ll tell you soon enough.” It was a promise she hadn’t realised she was making until it was made and Melinda always did her best to honour her promises no matter what. That and it just felt wrong to break a promise when it came to Skye.

“Okay.”

Melinda blinked. That was easy.

“But don’t think I’ll wait forever.”

The voice of conscience that long ago adopted her S-O’s tones spoke dryly in her mind then: _who does that remind you of?_ Melinda considered it would sound strange – and crazy – to tell herself to shut the fuck up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so how'd we like this then?
> 
> Just setting a few things up for later on and I hope you guys like where I'm going to take this (obviously I'm not giving it away just yet!).
> 
> lemme know whatcha think please :D


	4. Saying Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May Meets A Superhero ...

The home was … well what would be expected of any home for the elderly. Full of old dears long past their prime placed out of the way to die where their families don’t have to see the slow decay of years. Melinda had never liked them. She stood at the bottom of the stone steps staring up at the empty entrance trying to muster up the courage to walk inside and endure all that … hopelessness.

A tall building situated high overlooking the river with a wealth of beautiful gardens the occupants were probably too far gone in their old age to appreciate. She’d never come to visit before – phone calls were another thing; Melinda found it easier to talk to her S-O over the phone; she didn’t have to watch and see with her eyes what time was doing to her old mentor if she just spoke to her over the phone.

But this wasn’t something Melinda wanted to leave to a phone call. Quite apart from anything, all the memories and things she was keeping secret seem to be bubbling to the surface and it made her just want to see a friendly face.

So bottling up her courage, Melinda made her way up the steps, pulling off her aviators and stowing them inside her leather jacket as she pushed inside. A dim, almost surgically clean, entrance way carpeted in that awful style that every grandparents’ house worldwide seemed to have. Behind the desk a woman with dark hair braided against her scalp, wearing a white uniform, was talking to someone in the office behind the hole in the wall. A heavy book lay open on the desk in front of her – presumably for visitors to sign in and out for safety reasons – and a computer screen faced away from Melinda presumably for staff to access records.

Melinda approached the desk, subconsciously taking in the layout, the floor plan, blind spots, exits and security cameras as she did so.

“Can I help you?” a bright voice asked.

Melinda flickered her gaze away from the window and calculating the exact number of seconds it’d take to jump out of it in an emergency, to the source of the voice: the woman behind the desk. She was staring at Melinda with one eyebrow raised and had the air of someone tired of waiting. Melinda shot her an equally unimpressed look back and deliberately waited until the receptionist broke her stare before speaking.

“I’m here to see an old friend.”

“Well I didn’t think you were here for the karaoke.” Melinda glared again. Her fist tightening instinctively. “Have you visited before?”

“No, but I –”

“Hm.” It was a dismissal if ever there was one.

“But I have been keeping in contact over the phone. My job makes it difficult to find time for such visits.”

“I see … well can I have the name of the person you wish to visit?”

Melinda gave it over.

“Ah … well she’s got a visitor at the moment, a regular actually – he comes in at least three times a week now …” Melinda didn’t need to guess who. “But I’m sure he won’t mind if you want to interrupt. Room 185, on the third floor. You go through to the stair well and it’s the fourth door on your right when you reach level three … um, the lifts are for patient use only I’m afraid.”

“Good job I’m perfectly capable of walking.”

“Yes … well please sign in,” the receptionist gestured to the open book on the desk in front of her, “and then make sure to sign out again when you leave.”

Melinda did as asked, not bothering to come up with an alias as her eyes drifted over the names of visitors. One caught her eye and she frowned, trying to remember where she knew it from. Vladmon Burksi. Sounded Russian … shaking her head Melinda laid down the pen and looked up at the receptionist again.

“If I give you a name, can you tell me if they’ve ever visited?”

“The same patient you’re visiting today? Yes. Why?”

“It’s my sister,” Melinda lied, “she says she’s been but I don’t believe her.”

“I’ll look it up for you. What’s your sister’s name?”

“Ari.”

“Just Ari? I need a surname.”

“No you don’t, just tell me if any Ari has ever visited before.”

The receptionist sighed heavily, her fingers moving across the keyboard as she glanced once at Melinda before presumably pulling up records on the computer. “I have no record of anyone called Ari visiting Room 185.”

_Of course you don’t._

“Thank you. I’ll leave it to my mother to give her an earful for it.”

This actually got a smile from the receptionist. “If there’s anything more you need, then just ask a member of staff.”

Melinda nodded, stepping away from the desk and locating the stairwell. A polished banister and carpeted in the same awfully floral design as the entrance, Melinda began to climb, making sure her whole foot was squarely on the step before moving the other. She was stalling and she knew it. In fact anyone who passed could tell that she was stalling; the staff no doubt saw it all the time as visitors took their time in reaching their relatives for a visit. Unwilling to subject themselves to the doom and gloom that inevitably settled over these establishments.

* * *

_“I take it you’ve heard?” Her S-O asked over the phone, voice quiet and full of age. Melinda sighed heavily, blowing down the phone line._

_“Yes. I’ve heard. Phil called me a few hours ago and gave me a heads up.”_

_“So Fury is calling them in then. All of them?”_

_Melinda nodded, before remembering this was a phone call. She cleared her throat. “Yes. Yes I believe he is.”_

_“Do you think it’ll work? The Avengers Initiative?”_

_“I think it’s the only chance we have. By all accounts Barton’s already been compromised by some kind of alien tech …”_

_They were silent for a few moments … “I should’ve listened.”_

_“What do you mean?” Melinda asked immediately confused._

_“Years and years ago – before she came back with you – back before Shield even … Ari said I should let her take the Tesseract ... Out There so she could hide it. Told me that if it was left here on Earth then some idiot was going to start playing with it and start a war he wasn’t ready for.”_

_“Good job she’s not here to say ‘I told you so’ then isn’t it?”_

_“Perhaps I deserve an ‘I told you so’ about now. I promised that she could tell me ‘I told you so’ if she ever turned out to be right.”_

_Melinda’s heart contracted. “This isn’t your fault,” she whispered. “It’s no one’s fault. It was …” she trailed off, not willing to say what she thought. Though her S-O gave her little choice._

_“It was what?”_

_“Inevitable.”_

_Judging from the disapproving silence from the other end of the phone, Peggy wanted an explanation._

_“I mean we’ve both known that we’re not alone in this universe. There are billions and billions of intelligent life-forms Out There. It was only a matter of time before …” Melinda sighed. “Before something like this happened.”_

_“Maybe … Melinda, dear, I think you should –”_

_“No.” She didn’t hesitate when she sensed the direction of her S-O’s thoughts._

_“I haven’t said anything.” She heard a low defeated sigh, “Fury’s already asked you hasn’t he?”_

_“Yes. And you asking me … it’s still no.”_

_Silence on the other end of the line. “What about Phillip? He’ll need you to watch his back.”_

_“Phil’s been fine without me for the past four years. He’ll be fine now.”_

_“And if something happens? You won’t forgive yourself if something happens to him.”_

_“Nothing is going to happen!” Melinda shouted down the line. She took a breath and calmed herself down. “He’ll be fine. He always is. Nothing is going to happen to him.”_

* * *

Melinda paused to let a trio of white-uniformed staff rush by, and glanced at her reflection in the glass of another ghastly painting. She didn’t often relive that conversation because she honestly didn’t know if things would’ve been different had she gone aboard that helicarrier when Phil and Fury and her S-O asked it of her. Phil might well have still died. _She_ might have died instead of him and it might have been _her_ who’d been put through that Tahiti project …

Sighing heavily, Melinda resumed her journey upwards to the third floor where she began paying attention to the signage on the walls. Turning left, and pushing the door to the corridor open, Melinda searched for Room 185 where her mentor had been left to die.

 _Stop being so morbid May!_ She heard her mentor utter loudly in the recess of memory – probably from one time in the gym after she’d failed to execute a particular move to her perfection first time and had spent the rest of the session sulking about it when someone else did. “Yes ma’am,” Melinda whispered under her breath.

But then again, she really did hate these places; was already yearning for fresh air and more lively company. The entire building was quieter than a library on Sunday.

The door to Room 185 was already ajar and she could hear a low masculine voice from inside. Apprehension gripped her. Her fist, poised to knock, froze and her heart stammered. Why was she so afraid? The answer presented itself at once: because even the thought of having to witness what time did was painful, it highlighted a fact that couldn’t be denied. That everyone died. That time was the ultimate enemy that could not be defeated. For that reason, and that reason alone, Melinda had stayed away.

What lay beyond the door was the unknown, and the unknown – for obvious reasons – always managed to spike fear into her system. Cold reaches of dread seeped through veins while her gut clenched and everything, every miniscule cell, tensed. Her breathing would still and her chest tighten and her heart hammer like crazy; Melinda May hated the unknown; hated pretending to know more than she did and hated being in the dark, on the other foot. Hated when everyone else had the upper hand.

 _Courage Mel. I know you have it. I’ve seen it in you._ Easier said than done. See. Melinda would always face her fear of the unknown by fighting it. In the midst of a mission when she encountered a dark doorway or the mission brief was lacking in what to expect because they didn’t have any intel, Melinda would take a deep breath, find that place of inner peace and calm, and then charge through the doorway and attack whatever lay beyond it. Trusting her instincts. However. She knew with absolute certainty that what lay behind the door was not going to be something she could fight in any way: she’d have to face it without retreating behind the shield that were her combat skills.

What lay behind that door was simply old age. Old age; the decay of time.

Taking a deep breath, Melinda took the plunge. She rapped sharply on the door before realising how aggressive she sounded and then knocked again more gently.

“We were wondering how long you were going to just stand out there and do nothing.”

A small smile, relief, spread across Melinda’s face at that voice. Though old, she sounded no different from when she was yelling at her across the gym that she was capable of doing more than one hundred and twenty one-armed push-ups before collapsing in a heap. Melinda pushed the door to Room 185 open further and stepped inside.

A respectable room, with a view of the river from the window, and various medical machinery tucked away in the corners. A standard issue hospital bed – although _slightly_ nicer – stood with the headboard against the wall opposite the door with enough space for staff to manoeuvre around it at ease. Several chairs stood under the window and one had been drawn up to the bedside and a fine specimen of a man was rising from it.

Even without the blond hair, eyes bluer than the sky and rippling with more muscle than should be decent, Melinda didn’t need an introduction to know who he was. The name scrawled in the visitor’s book at reception hadn’t even been a surprise simply because of who her mentor was. Tall – incredibly tall – tall enough to make her feel small (which never happened) and with enough muscle to give Melinda cause to take a cautionary step backwards (not that she would with her S-O watching so intently), she couldn’t help but understand why Phil was so obsessed over him.

Which she adamantly refused, there and then, to never admit to him. Ever.

Captain Steven Rogers was eyeing her warily, hands on hips, his white tee stretched across his chest and showing hints of the mass of muscle underneath. Melinda stared back, arching an eyebrow and clasping her hands behind her back; almost unconsciously the pair of them had slipped into an easy stance that would have them reacting at a split second’s notice. An edge of tension in the room as the captain wondered why she was there and for what purpose … and probably why she had taken so long to come inside.

A chuckle drew their attention to the bed and its occupant.

Peggy Carter.

Melinda’s gut clenched again with pity – an emotion she despised both having and receiving. Her hair was grey and wispy, skin spotted with age and wrinkled, cheeks hollow and her limbs thinner than sticks. Peggy Carter was in every sense of the word, wasting away, unable to escape the decay of time and breaking everyone’s heart in the process as it happened.

“Steve, this is Agent Melinda May, one of my former mentees … Melinda, I’m sure you don’t need introductions now do you?” Melinda shook her head with a small smile as Steve retook his seat beside Peggy’s bed, “Good … now come here into the light so I can see you properly. My eyes … are not what they once were …”

Melinda nodded, closing the door behind her and stepping forwards to Peggy’s bedside. Her mentor sighed heavily. “As I suspected, still as beautiful as ever – isn’t she Steve?” both women glanced at the captain, who upon realising what he’d been asked, cleared his throat.

“Yes. Well. I assume so … I mean I don’t know – but … yes.” He cleared his throat again.

Melinda watched as Peggy smiled fondly at him. “All this time and you still haven’t a clue how to talk to women …”

Steve smiled in return, but there was a tinge of sadness in his eyes. “Yeah Peg … I guess it’s just one of those things.”

Melinda felt the sudden, desperate, need to lighten the mood, “Coulson always dug himself a grave when it came to talking to women as well, so perhaps it’s not just you Captain, but all the male species … or at least – the decent ones anyway.”

“You know Agent Coulson?”

 _Agent Coulson_ … been a while since – wait. Hang on. Did he just say _know_?

“Your friend just stopped by; bought us up to speed.” Melinda’s confusion had to have been evident on her face because Steve Rogers was explaining. “About how Fury decided to play god and bring Coulson back from the dead. About how Coulson is now in charge of Shield.”

“What friend?” Melinda asked suspiciously. “Hill?”

“No dear.” Peggy said patiently, “Ari just left … I’m surprised you didn’t cross paths on the stair well.” Ari had been here? Now? Today? This was more than coincidence … Peggy’s hand was resting on Melinda’s as she perched on the edge of the bed. She squeezed as tightly as she could until Melinda met her gaze. “You should’ve told me about Fury’s assignment,” she chided.

Melinda shrugged. “I didn’t want to burden you. But Ari left Shield over ten years ago … there’s no way she could know about Coulson and Project Tahiti and …” she trailed off.

“When are you going to learn that rules don’t apply to Ari?” Peggy asked amused. “That she is somehow the exception to everything.” Melinda smiled slightly and shrugged again.

Steve Rogers got to his feet, clearing his throat uncomfortably. “Well, I – uh … I’m going to get some air … and a drink – coffee … um … would you dames – ladies … that’s … I meant …” he gave up and left the room. Melinda watched Peggy’s fond smile follow him out and shook her head.

“Now, tell me what is so important for you to come visit? Something is wrong; I can feel it.”

The urge to pacify her mentor overruled common sense. “Nothing Peggy. I just wanted to –”

Peggy Carter sighed again. An edge of irritability crept into her voice. “Please: I may be old but I am not a fool. Neither you nor Ari ever visit out of some sense of guilt and fear and for the both of you to turn up on the same day tells me that all is not well in the world.” In a tired voice she added, “I need to feel involved … just once more … can you give me that?”

Melinda was nodding before Peggy had finished speaking. Taking a deep breath, she told her about the Kree Monolith and the twenty-six missing agents; about how Phil was being a dick and how he was losing his humanity by being director (“Now really, is there a need to be so overly dramatic Melinda?” “Yes.”); about Skye … about Skye now being Daisy and having powers, about how afraid she had been that events would lead her right back to Bahrain, with the girl being Skye; about how she couldn’t stop calling and thinking of Skye as Skye (Peggy went quiet and seemed to retreat within as Melinda spoke about Skye); about how Bahrain and what she’d done had come out so now Phil and Skye and probably the rest of the world now knew about it too … about her fears that the secrets she had buried long ago were going to come to light; about how Ari had shown up during her break just to unsettle her and about how she had to go find Ari because Ari was the only person who could explain what was happening with that stupid Kree Monolith.

Peggy’s response was as practical as they ever were. “The truth has never been more honest than when it’s freely given. Tell them.”

Melinda looked at her knees. “I don’t think I’m ready to … Ari doesn’t even know and –” _and I owe it to her first_.

“The truth has an uncanny and uncomfortable and unpredictable way of coming to light regardless of the measures taken to prevent it. Sometimes it’s best just to take the plunge and get it over with; get it off your chest.”

“I told _you_ ,” Melinda murmured.

“Yes,” Peggy agreed. “And I am proud of you for doing that. I will always be proud of you for trusting me like that after what you’d gone through before … but,” and she sighed once again, “but Melinda, dear …”

“Don’t say it.”

“But I am. And when it happens … who will you have to turn to? Everyone needs someone. I’m sure even Ari has somebody she turns to, somebody she trusts above all others. Someone she doesn’t have to pretend for.”

Melinda closed her eyes tightly. “The truth scares me Peggy,” she admitted.

“That’s because it’s _the truth_ … but what you fear is the reaction from the people you love, you fear what they will think and do once they learn what you are hiding.”

“Can you blame me?”

“No … but if they love you too … and I am sure that they do … then – then they will at least give you the chance to finish. To explain … and … and I am sure that they will understand … eventually.”

Peggy’s voice was growing softer and Melinda turned her gaze from the floor to her old so in time to see her stifle a yawn. “I’m keeping you from resting,” she said suddenly ashamed.

“No – no …” Peggy said quickly. “What are you going to do about the Monolith? You must know that I did not intend for it to be messed with it. I know I promised to have it destroyed, but the thing proved far more difficult than anticipated. I imagine between then and now someone of a high clearance probably decided to stop attempts to destroy it and figure out what it could be used for.”

“Idiots,” Melinda muttered.

“I know. But you both were adamant about how I should not have any written documents about how we came to possess it or what we knew it did.” Peggy reminded her.

“And if there were written documents about all that? What then?”

“What then indeed …?”

Melinda shook her head. “I don’t know what to do … Ari’s the only one who might: she’s spent more time Out There than I have. I just … I don’t know how to find her. Last time I had a conversation with her was the day Nat became an official agent of Shield. When she just upped and left I thought – well I didn’t know what to think. None of us did. Thought she was dead until she showed up last week and put me on edge and disappeared before I even adjusted to her just _appearing_ out of thin air. Even if she does know what to do about the Monolith, I don’t know how to find her.”

This got an amused snort from Peggy. “Did you, or I, ever know how to find her? Isn’t that how you two became acquainted in the first place – an elaborate game of hide-and-seek across the stars?”

“Something like that,” Melinda muttered darkly, not wanting to remember those times out of shame and guilt, “not that she remembers of course.” They sat in a heavy silence for a moment before Peggy moved to cover it up with some reminiscing and, grateful for the change of topic, Melinda obliged.

A nurse in white uniform entered ten minutes later and kindly stated that visiting hours were over and that it was time to say goodbyes. And they really were goodbyes because – although it wasn’t said – Peggy had gotten to the point where it was a gamble over whether or not she’d wake up in the morning. Steve reappeared in time to say his farewells, Melinda stepping outside for a moment to give them privacy and being called, very firmly, back inside before she could make her escape.

Saying goodbye was another of those things Melinda hated. The unknown, undercover work, goodbyes. And spiders. She fucking hated spiders.

“You’ll find Ari when you stop looking for her.” Peggy whispered into her ear as she said her farewells, “but be wary Melinda May … and remember what Ari always said: that there is a bigger picture. Something’s … coming.”

 _Something’s coming_. Melinda got that sense too. Like the entire world was holding its breath, preparing to dive, like the calm before the storm … and all these altercations: New York and Loki, Thor and his alien ship in Greenwich, Ultron … all of them, were just minor skirmishes in comparison to what loomed ahead. Like they were preparation for something … _bigger_.

Melinda and Steve walked out of the care home together. She got the impression that there were things on the great captain’s mind he wished to discuss, but wasn’t really feeling up to it. Peggy’s warning and the statement about finding someone new to confide in had her wanting to curl up in a ball and ignore it all. Not that she would run and burry her head in the sand, but it _was_ tempting.

The captain was saying something, so Melinda hurled herself back into the present.

“… side effects?”

“I’m sorry – what?”

The pair of them came to a stop at the bottom of the stone stairs and face one another while passers-by gave them dirty looks for halting in such an inconvenient place. Both Steve and Melinda ignored them. Steve pulled out a black binder from underneath his jacket, the Shield logo stamped across the top and the word Classified across the bottom along with the number ten in a red circle in case anyone missed how top secret this file was; ‘Project Tahiti’ was stamped along the spine. It was identical to the one Phil had locked in his desk draw in the Playground, only black rather than grey. Melinda was sure inside was the same information as in Phil’s.

And begged the question: how had Ari gotten hold of it?

“There’s a whole section about side effects in here. Has Agent Coulson experienced any?”

The concern would have Phil ecstatic with joy. But she felt it was unwise to lie to Captain America, so she didn’t. “He did – and it was touch and go for a while … but he’s fine now. I’d go into further details but this isn’t really a conversation we ought to be having in the middle of a street.”

Steve inclined his head. “Agreed. But this drug is dangerous.”

“The drug no longer exists,” Melinda interrupted. “So there is nothing to worry about is there?”

Steve Rogers stared at her for the longest of moments. “Can I trust you?” he asked.

Melinda met his gaze, “Do you trust Natasha Romanoff and Maria Hill?”

“Natasha – yeah … yeah I do. Hill?” he sighed, “How can I when she was in on all this – on Shield still existing – yet said nothing?”

“What did you expect Fury to do? Give up and let Hydra win? Fury understands that the world no longer can protect itself without Shield – or some version of Shield.”

But Steve wasn’t going to be pacified that easily. “When Hydra took control, Shield had become the very thing I had sworn to fight. That’s why I told Fury it all had to go – that we couldn’t salvage anything because there wasn’t anything worth saving.”

“Shield got too big; and perhaps starting again was the best option after what happened … okay put it this way: do you trust Coulson?” perhaps not the best question because at the moment Melinda wasn’t one hundred percent sure she trusted Phil … but not the point.

“I’d trust Agent Coulson.”

“It’s Director now …” Melinda sighed, “If you trust Coulson and you trust Natasha and Clint then you can trust me and you can definitely trust Maria Hill.”

Steve Rogers nodded absently, looking down at the file in his arms. “Where you off to now?”

Melinda shook her head and laughed. “I’m going to attempt to track down a ghost. But Ari never did like being found.”

Steve mumbled something again, too low for Melinda to hear though she did catch a few words at the end: “… hasn’t changed a bit.” He looked up and over the river before speaking up. “If you find her, let me know will you? There are several questions I’d like answering and I get the feeling she’s the only one who can.”

“Unfortunately I fear you’re right. I’ll tell Hill to pass on the message if I do locate her. I take it you got nothing when she dropped by before I arrived?”

“Nothing. If I find her, how do I get in contact with you?”

“Same thing: tell Hill to pass the message on …” and perhaps the only reason she added what she did next was because Melinda knew it would annoy Phil to no end. “Or you could use my number directly.” Steve pulled out a little notebook from his pocket and a pen, dutifully jotting down the number as Melinda relayed it from memory.

“Agent May?” he called suddenly as she turned to leave, like he had just remembered something or realised somerthing, she glanced over her shoulder at the soldier. “As in Bahrain? _You’re_ The Cavalry?”

Melinda gritted her teeth. “Don’t _ever_ call me that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow I'm on fire ... another update already.
> 
> these chapters are setting stuff up for later on but i hope you are enjoying them anyway, things should pick up from here and start getting interesting.
> 
> usual thing: lemme know whatcha think :)


	5. The 0-8-4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye Encounters An Object She's Seen Before ...

Skye sat back and sighed heavily. Despite the reassurance that May was out there trying to solve the problem Coulson was content to burry, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there _wasn’t_ going to be a solution. Or at least, not one that was easy and made sense …

Breakfast was a dull affair. Coulson had shut himself away in his office and refused to unlock the door when Skye had tried to speak to him earlier. It was like he was intentionally ignoring and avoiding her – like he did when they were desperately treading water after Shield’s downfall and subsequent, tentative survival. Though her mind was somewhat at ease now that she knew May wasn’t going to stand for this shit any more than she was: maybe when May got back with whomever it was she was going to find, then together they could make Coulson see sense again?

Skye snorted into her cornflakes. She wasn’t hopeful.

Stubborn bastard.

Lincoln flopped down in the chair beside her and grunted some kind of greeting as he grabbed the coffee pot. From the looks of things, Fitz wasn’t going to turn up again: he’d probably already gone to the lab in his desperation, searching for something that would give him a clue as to how to get Simmons back. The urge to reassure him and tell him May was on it almost had Skye getting to her feet and heading over to the labs, but caution stilled her: at this point there were no guarantees and the last thing she wanted to do was give Fitz false hope … so she remained at the table with the rest of the half-asleep team.

On the bright side, she thought, at least she had a name now.

Daisy Johnson.

Although … as much as it seemed like she now knew everything and had all her answers, Skye – Daisy – whatever (she was still figuring it out) – couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more. More to the story than what she’d been told … the sensible and rational part of her pointed out that she was probably just nit-picking and not used to closure and getting all her answers … but still, it nagged at her enough to put her on edge.

Finding the right balance between being Daisy and being Skye was … Skye sighed and slumped forwards to reach for the juice. She _thought_ she had it down: what the names meant to her and about her – which sides of her, so to speak, they represented. She had been Skye too long just to let that girl go now she had a name and an identity; and she didn’t really _want_ to let who she had been go too. It had taken several sleepless nights before she had managed to get it straight inside her own head, but Skye was happy with the conclusion she’d reached.

Daisy was a person capable of doing all the shit that needed doing – and not crying about it when she got home. Daisy was a super-spy and a superhero. Badass and unafraid. Skye … Skye was the person underneath all that: someone she now kept secret only for the select few people she trusted because Skye had been hurt one too many times. Skye wasn’t who she used to be, but someone she no longer could _always_ be. And Skye was badass in her own right – just not _superhero_ badass like Daisy Johnson was.

And perhaps Fitz’s comment about having Avenger-level powers had gone to her head a bit, but Skye saw no harm in that. It wasn’t as if she were parading herself around in a display of self-publicity like Tony Stark did, or as if she had a heightened sense of moral duty that meant she could argue and question those in charge without fear of retribution like Steve Rogers. And at least she was well past the causing-more-harm-than-good stage that, unfortunately, Bruce Banner seemed to be stuck in.

Finishing the last of her soggy cornflakes, Skye – Daisy – whatever – gathered up her empty bowl, spoon and her now cold mug of tea as she got to her feet, pushing her chair back with a scrape on the floor and causing the others round the table to glance at her with varying degree of hostility at the sudden and unexpected loud noise so early in the morning. She dumped the bowl into the sink and poured her cold tea down the drain before refilling the kettle and proceeding to make herself a fresh mug.

She was half way through making her tea before she realised that she was using what was sternly labelled as ‘May’s tea: Hands off’ (someone had added ‘Or I’ll Kill You’ to the label) – stuff that Shield had to get from some specific and obscure tea company based in a little village in the very heart of China. Not that May really needed to put a label on the stuff since everyone else had tried it at one point or other and decided it wasn’t at all worth the special measures Coulson went into procuring it, although Skye liked it. And she hoped that May didn’t mind her having some, because Skye wasn’t foolish enough to assume she hadn’t noticed that consumption of the tea was twice as fast as it otherwise would be.

Taking her tea – which she estimated had travelled thousands and thousands of miles to wind up in her cow-print mug – with her, Skye decided to see how Fitz was. He’d taken over the running of the lab since Simmons had been ... well … leaving Mack alone in the garage. Skye was pleased for him in the sense that he had decided, opted, to go back to the lab; any lab would always be – in her mind at least – FitzSimmons’ lab and anything else just was wrong.

She found Fitz leaning over a lab bench with Bobbi, Hunter and a couple of lab helpers crowding round him, obscuring whatever it was they were pouring over from Skye’s view. Curiosity piped, she decided to join them – not like she had anything to be doing. The IAC unit virtually ran itself and Skye wasn’t up to training down in the basement with Lincoln or even going a few rounds in the gym with Mack, so sipping her tea from China, Skye filled the gap round the bench between Hunter and Fitz as Bobbi spoke.

“Yeah – I put in a report to Coulson about it, but Weaver wanted me to oversee you opening it … y’know. She still has those trust issues and all that with Coulson after all.”

Fitz was only half listening. “Hmm … yeah – I know. But you can hardly blame the man. I mean, he was trained by Fury; probably _the_ most paranoid person in all of Shield history.” Surprisingly he hadn’t gone to complete pieces when Simmons disappeared, in fact it seemed to have helped him regain what was missing. It was like he had decided he didn’t have time to be struggling with his words and worrying about what people might be thinking of him now; like he realised there were more important things he had to focus on other than comparing himself to how he used to be. The absence of his stutter – Skye put it down regaining his self-confidence.

“Hey guys, what’s this?”

“Hunter and Bobbi found it on a routine sweep a few weeks ago,” Fitz replied absently.

“What? Project Romeo?” Skye confirmed, glancing at Bobbi, who nodded once. No one asked how Skye knew the name of that particular operation – hacking had once again become something of a hobby rather than the reason Shield kept her around, and she routinely tested the firewalls protecting the Shield databanks and archives by hacking into them, improving them. “I didn’t know you’d bought anything back with you.”

Bobbi shrugged. “I only mentioned it in the report I submitted to Coulson. Didn’t want too many people getting wind of a potential 084. Especially after all that shit with the last one.”

“084?” Skye repeated, glancing at the unassuming black box sitting in the middle of the bench between them. Old and covered in scrapes, it looked as though it had been through its fair share of upheaval, though miraculously still firmly locked despite the few dents and peeling paint. It was nothing more, Skye realised, than a common lockup box people bought to store keys or money or other valuables.

“I still don’t see why we can’t just pick the lock.” Hunter grumbled, jarring Skye back to earth.

Fitz sighed heavily through his nose, his accent all the thicker because he was annoyed. “ _Because_ ,” he said, “I’ve already tried that and it didn’t work! Besides … there is a series of computer codes _and_ a biometric-cypher bolt keeping this thing shut tight.” As he spoke, Fitz touched the lid of the black box, revealing a touch screen where a thumb print could be scanned and a code input.

Skye smirked at Hunter’s stumped look.

“What do you think is inside?” Skye asked before Hunter could say anything else to wind Fitz up.

“Could be anything really,” he said thoughtfully. “A weapon. An object. Who knows? Maybe the secret formula to Doctor Erskine’s Super Serum … anything at all.”

Realistically it wasn’t going to be the latter, Skye mused, although Coulson would probably start bouncing off the ceiling if it was. If it _was_ , she thought, then Skye resolved to make sure the documents were burned and destroyed: it was too much of a risk to keep something so valuable around. Who knew what governments and organisations would do if they got their grubby hands on such a recipe? After all, that was what had happened with the knock-off stuff, it had been made for the SSR and obtained by the Russians when its maker had been duped, to Peggy Carter’s utter incandescent rage – hence Black Widow.

(Of course revealing she knew that bit of trivia would led to some awkward questions Skye wasn’t sure she wanted to answer …)

Skye forced her mind back into the now. She really needed some decent op or mission to occupy her mind. All this waiting was driving her slowly doo-lally. Especially since her own Project, the one that Coulson had handed to her a few weeks back and said would be top priority and urgency, had been put unexpectedly and unexplainably on hold … indefinitely. Suspicions as to who threw the spanner into the works lay on the doorstep of one Agent Weaver. Skye had never liked her.

Focusing on the box once more, Skye watched as Fitz bent to examine the lip of the lid more closely through a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers. “… melt it or something.”

“Izzy had to do that with the box for the Diviner.” Hunter supplied. “Means that you know if someone’s got to it before you have.”

Bobbi wasn’t convinced. “If it were that simple then why didn’t the Hydra at the base open it?”

“How’d we know they even knew it was there?” he countered, though his tones weren’t as automatically argumentative as they usually were when it came to Bobbi.

“We don’t,” she conceded with a small shrug.

There was something bugging Skye. The whole set up – the precautions and security measures taken … suddenly she didn’t want to know what was inside, much less let the others open it up. “We have to also take into account that someone went to great lengths to keep whatever is inside that box locked up,” Skye pointed out.

“I thought that was obvious,” one of the lab assistants muttered with a filthy glance at Skye.

Skye didn’t respond, just gave her the ‘May Glare’ she was trying to perfect. The lab assistant met her gaze and squirmed uncomfortably under Skye’s unimpressed look while Fitz muttered something about melting points and chemical imbalances and where was Simmons when he needed her. Well, thought Skye, at least this time he hadn’t retreated within like before and was focused enough to joke about her absence, even if he was going out of his mind for worry. Perhaps this task – opening the box, finding out what was inside – was his way of regaining a bit of sanity and breathing room amidst his trepidation and fear for Simmons.

Looking up at them all Fitz shook his head irritably. “Look how’m I meant t’ open this thing with you lot all crowding round me? Give a man some space … honestly … it’s not hard …”

Pleased that he was finding himself again, Skye motioned to Bobbi and Hunter to step back and give him some room. The two lab assistants glanced at Fitz before nodding and returning to their own tasks at his stern request. Leaning against a low table with her tea warming her hands, Skye happened to catch Coulson striding past the lab from the corner of her eye. Placing her tea safely on the table, she hurried out of the lab and after the Director. She didn’t really know what she was after, but she wasn’t going to let him avoid her and May’s assurance that Skye was her ‘man on the inside’ while she was busy finding – whoever it was she was finding – giving Skye the courage to confront Coulson once again.

He was still hiding what remained of his arm in a sling underneath his jacket, which reminded Skye of what May had said, _‘get him to make a decision about a new hand’_. Coulson was wallowing in self-pity and refusing to move forwards; well if he didn’t want to talk about Simmons and the Kree Rock then that was absolutely fine – Skye would pester him about a new hand instead. Quite apart from anything else, the stubborn refusal to make a decision was impractical; especially since he had a knack of butting in on the ops he ordered and assigned, as if he didn’t trust them all to do the job properly.

“Coulson!” she called down the corridor. She saw him stiffen and miss a step, but he didn’t slow. Sighing in frustration, and thinking dimly that her tea would be stone cold by the time she returned to it, Skye hurried after the Director, watching as he approached a door at the end of the corridor. On a spur-of-the-moment decision she sent out a series of vibrations to jam the lock and stop him from escaping her. Reaching the door, Coulson tugged but it didn’t budge. He yanked hard enough to almost pull the handle off, but the door didn’t open. Skye caught the mumbled words of irritation from the Director before he turned sharply on his heel to face her. He was not in a good mood.

“What?” He demanded.

Skye resisted the urge to take a step back. She hadn’t expected him to be _quite_ so stand-off-ish.

“If this is about that damn Kree Rock thing again, then so help me God, Skye, I will –”

“It’s not,” she interrupted hastily, not wanting to be on the receiving end of one of Coulson’s infamous threats.

He seemed to deflate a little and relax, ever so slightly – which Skye took as a good sign.

“What then?”

This stumped Skye somewhat, the subject of Coulson’s … _disability_ … still a little raw. But May’s words rang in the back of her mind, giving her the courage to delve in.

_I need you here … See if you can get Coulson to make a decision about a replacement for his hand._

“The Medical Staff want to know if you’ve come to a decision yet,” okay, start small: it wasn’t a _total_ lie. Skye was sure they were wondering if their illustrious Director had made up his mind yet, but no one had approached her about it.

Coulson raised an eyebrow.

Skye gulped.

“They think – erm … well the thing is … the sooner you do then – well then the sooner you can –”

“I have more important things to be dealing with right now.”

“Yeah but do you? Y’know this isn’t just gonna go away!” she called as Coulson brushed past her and headed back the way he’d come, having been defeated by a door and a vibrating Inhuman. “Not like your hand’s gonna magical grow back overnight!”

He stopped dead at that, causing Skye to cringe. “Me and my damn mouth,” she muttered under her breath. Coulson turned his head slightly, probably to retort, but thought better of it and shook his head instead before resuming his harried retreat.

“One nil to Coulson,” Skye sighed heavily as she made her way back to the lab and her – probably now cold – tea from China. A new found respect for May and her ability to deal with Coulson surged within Skye … until she remembered May had spent the past two weeks on holiday and had now gone on a personal mission of her own without mentioning it to Coulson, or even dropping by to let him know she’d made it back in one piece.

Bobbi and Hunter were still lingering in the back of the lab, waiting for Fitz to prise open the box they’d found on their mission. Skye joined them, picking her mug of tea up as she passed it by. Taking a sip she pulled a face; lukewarm. Urgh. Bobbi smirked.

“Did you get anything out of him?” she asked.

“No,” Skye shook her head. “He’s still walking round with his arm – or what’s left of it – in a sling and the attitude that if he ignores it long enough everything will go back to how it used to be.”

“Poor guy,” Bobbi sighed, “But when May gets back she’ll knock some sense into him.” Skye resisted the urge to correct her and point out how bad things between ‘Mom and Dad’ were. Bobbi had her own shit to cope with.

“Fitz worked out how to get that box open yet?”

Hunter shook his head, “I suggested he blew it open with some TNT.”

From across the lab Fitz snorted. “You from the dark ages? TNT … nobody uses TNT anymore. Besides. It would probably destroy whatever is inside.”

Again the suspicion that the box shouldn’t be opened overwhelmed Skye. “Do we really want to be doing this?” she asked. “We may be setting ourselves up for another can of worms like with the Diviner. Really don’t wanna deal with _another_ species of humans today.”

At this Hunter let out a snigger of laughter. “Didn’t know Inhumans were a separate species.”

“Weaver wants this thing open,” Bobbi interrupted, “And Coulson agrees … so instead of talking about whether or not we should open this thing, let’s just let Fitz get it open.”

Skye took another gulp of her tea, and pulled another grimace, as she decided that she just needed something to _do_ ; she was getting paranoid about a simple box and what might be inside it. Finishing the last of her tea, and grimacing as she swallowed it down – earning another smirk from Bobbi (“You’re the one voluntarily drinking May’s crappy tea!”).

The three of them lingered in the lab until Fitz got annoyed and shoed them out. “Look. I’ll tell ya when I’ve got it open! Just – you’re getting in my way! Bobbi – you’re a biochemist right? I need a hand here.” Hunter and Skye filed out of the lab in disgrace and went their separate ways: Hunter went to pester Mack while Skye headed over to the computer suite to sit and dwell in the darkness while she waited for Fitz to report the opening of the stupid box.

Dragging the single office chair to centre console, Skye sat and sighed, her fringe flapping wildly as she mentally noted the need for a haircut. She placed her empty mug on the surface and flicked the on switch; the low hum of machinery whirred into action as the low lights flickered on above her and the many screens spluttered into life and light. Running her hands through her hair Skye stared unseeingly at the blank screen with the Shield logo twisting in a lazy spiral for a while before standing up and pulling up the security feed for the lab. There were several cameras – six in total, seven including the one outside in the corridor – which provided a clear view of the lab and no blind spots. The big screen in front of her divided itself into eight, each feed providing Skye an uninterrupted view of what Fitz and Bobbi and the other lab assistants were up to. She pulled up Facebook to occupy the empty eighth.

There was a coffee machine in one corner of the room, which Skye made use of, and a mini fridge. Returning to the chair with coffee and chocolate, Skye made herself comfortable. At least the cameras were of a decent quality and provided a clear picture, as opposed to the shoddy quality that most security devices provided: the standard of a smartphone camera was better than the average security cameras. Luckily the security cameras that swept the Playground were of a quality similar to that used for television or film production.

Which meant that when – finally – Fitz and Bobbi managed to crack open the lockup box, Skye had a clear and undistorted view of what was inside. And her blood turned to ice. Heart in her throat, Skye jumped to her feet and hit the intercom as Fitz reached his hand forwards to lift the object out. “Don’t touch it Fitz!” in her haste, her voice rang out across the Playground via the intercom system, not that Skye cared. “Whatever you do – don’t touch it!”

Abandoning her chair and the IAC unit, Skye raced through the Playground back to the labs as fast as she could, knowing that all manner of questions were about to come pouring her way, and knowing that she wouldn’t be able to answer even a handful of them. But all she cared about was making sure Fitz didn’t touch that dagger.

The lab was crowded by the time she reached it. Everyone having heard her over the intercoms and come to investigate. Coulson and Weaver and just about everybody else had crammed into the lab while Fitz and Bobbi valiantly attempted to keep everyone away from the lockup box and the thing inside it. Skye took in the situation in one sweeping glance – just as May had taught her to: Weaver was demanding they open the box and Coulson was also wanting it open, though he was saying perhaps they should wait until Skye got there.

“Agent Johnson. Will you please explain yourself?” Weaver demanded the instant she noticed Skye was there. Coulson looked up at her, his face displaying the fact that he also was wanting an explanation, but didn’t speak, content to let Weaver rant on while Mack and Hunter ushered everyone out of the lab and shut the blinds. Ignoring Weaver, and Coulson, Skye turned to Fitz and Bobbi.

“What’s going on Skye?” Fitz asked.

She shook her head. “Did you touch it?”

“No. Why?”

“What do you know about this weapon Johnson?” Weaver demanded.

“Skye,” Coulson said in a gentler voice – great, the ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine.

She sucked in a breath through her nose. “Dunno. I just … let me see it a second.” Bobbi glanced at Coulson, who nodded once, before pulling on a pair of thick gloves and handing a pair to Skye. She then lifted the lid of the lockup box so they could see what was nested inside. The faint glimmer of hope that she had been seeing things vanished as she studied the dagger resting in a bed of sawdust and straw. All angles, with a thin triangular-shaped blade and a face with angry glowing eyes where the handle, the cross guard and blade met. There was a gloopy, liquid-like substance in the middle of the blade in the shape of an elongated diamond with the consistency of treacle, the same colour as the eyes on the blank face. A harsh purple colour.

The last time Skye had seen that dagger, it had been protruding from the back of her very best friend. Sometimes she still saw the ground soaked in blood and heard the cry of agony and saw the healing wound with blackened veins edging out of it under the skin …

“Well? We haven’t got all day Johnson.” Weaver snapped. “So perhaps you’d like to tell us what’s going on and how you are familiar with this item?”

Skye glanced at Bobbi; she nodded once. Lie.

“I saw a picture of this thing once, during my time with the Rising Tide. There wasn’t much intel on it only that touching it would be a very bad idea.”

“How bad?” Coulson asked.

Skye carefully closed the lid. “Like you’d burn up in a cloud of purple goop bad or be infected with whatever’s in the middle of it if you got cut by it.”

Weaver wasn’t impressed. “Agent Morse. Agent Fitz. I trust you’ll be careful. I want to know what this thing is. Agent Johnson, if you’d kindly like to write up _everything_ you remember about this weapon, I want it on my desk in an hour.”

“With all due respect,” Skye snarked, unable to stop herself. “But last time I checked, Coulson was the Director here, not you.” Hunter sniggered from his place by the lab door, and Skye swore she saw Coulson’s stern expression crack slightly. “So how about … I tell Coulson what he needs to know and everyone leaves this thing the hell alone before we have another Kree Rock incident or Battle of New York on our hands … huh? I mean, isn’t this how this shit happens? People like _you_ ordering the newest toy to be played with before anyone really knows what it is and ignoring the people that urge caution!”

“You go too far, Agent Johnson! You are hereby –”

“Enough.” Coulson snapped. “Fitz, seal that thing and lock it away. Come find me when you have so I can input my override code; Skye … well find everything you can on this weapon and write it up. Bobbi, Hunter, Mack … you guys know what to do.”

“And me?” Weaver asked, acidly as everyone bustled about.

“I think Koenig needs help with the inventory and the bathrooms could do with a clean.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me a while. But here we are. What d'you lot think? Skye's seen the 084 before ...
> 
> Let me know what you think, I appreciate the time you guys take to comment and everything :) I'll try not to take so long to post the next chapter.


	6. Shawarma

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye Makes A Phone Call & May Has Some Shawarma ...

In the safety of her bunkroom Skye locked the door, sat with her back against it for good measure and pulled out her phone. The number she wanted to ring she’d memorised at the age of four – or five she supposed, since she was actually older than she’d thought. Over the years since she had been given the number, whenever Skye rang it, her friend had always been there as soon as she could – though it sometimes took a week or so for sed friend to show up.

Problem was, Skye wasn’t sure her friend was even still alive; the last Skye had seen or heard from her was the December after things went down in New York ... she and Miles had gone to Dublin to track down a lead on her parents which had turned out to be a trap; her friend had arrived in time to yank them out of the shit and save their asses.

Put it this way. Skye was 97% sure her very best friend was dead. Not even chicks who can heal and recover from any injury or malady could survive eight bullets to the chest. Scratch that, not even a  _God_  could survive that. But Skye couldn’t help hoping that maybe, miraculously, her friend had managed to walk away from even that. Sighing heavily, she dialled the number anyway and waited; the routine of the motion, more than anything, comforting enough to settle her thoughts. Besides … she just wanted to hear her friend’s voice as the call went to voicemail.

The phone rang, once … twice … three times …

On the fourth ring Skye was preparing to hang up – an unexpected burst of choked up emotion catching her off-guard, and she suddenly didn’t want to hear the voice of her friend out of fear she’d crumble to a sobbing mess at the foot of her door. Then the line engaged and the unmistakable sounds of  _someone_  reached Skye’s ear.

“… just let me get this – hey. What up?”

Shocked beyond belief, Skye just sat there.

“Oh shit. Yeah. Crap.” There was the sound of someone talking on the other end of the line, but Skye couldn’t hear what was being said.

Finding her voice, she croaked out; “You  _never_  answer my calls. Never.” Forget the fact that the last time she had  _seen_  her friend was as Miles dragged her away from her bullet-riddled body. Though some part of her seemed resigned to the fact that the likelihood was that her friend would turn up alive someplace unexpected at some point in the future. She had a habit of surviving  _anything_.

The sound of a deep breath being sucked in. “Erm … long day? Just, hang on – wait a sec… KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM JACKASS! What d’you want?” the unmistakable sound of gunfire echoed down the phone to Skye and she had the sudden realisation that her friend had answered her call during the middle of … well.  _Something_.

“I …” it sounded like she was busy. “It can wait. Look … I’ll – I’ll call you back or – or something …”

“Skye. What’s the matter? You never call unless something's up. Tell me. Tell me or I’ll show up at the most inconvenient of moments and drag it out of you with popcorn and vodka.”

Though she was alone in her bunkroom, Skye couldn’t help the grin. Damn it. It was hard when you lost the person you could always count on … or thought you had lost the person you knew you could count on.

“Skye … c’mon. I don’t have all day here. Kinda trying not to die …  _again_.”

“I thought you said you’d gotten rid of it.” There was a dead silence on the other end of the line. Even the gunfire seemed to have stopped. Skye could feel the tension from the other end of the line.

A long pause – long enough that Skye began to wonder if her friend had hung up on her, she even took her phone away from her ear to check and almost missed the reply. “Got rid of what?” by her tone, which had suddenly lost its joking manner, she knew precisely what ‘it’ was. Another pause while Skye waited and then, with a sigh; “I did. I sealed it inside a lockup. Lead-lined and with my own biometric-cypher bolt.” She spoke through gritted teeth. “Why?”

“Well my team has it. And they got it open.”

“What team?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“What team?”

“I said it’s not important.”

“Skye.  _What team_?”

She paused for a moment, considering the wisdom of telling her friend. “Shield.”

A snort of laughter. “I thought you hated Shield. What with all that information they keep from the world.”

Skye rolled her eyes, tilted her head – though nobody could see her – and smiled mockingly. “I was young and naïve.”

Another disbelieving laugh, distorted slightly through the phone line. “And you’ve suddenly grown all up in three years?”

“I know it’s hard to believe,” Skye began hotly. “But –”

“No, no. Okay. It’s cool. So Shield has it. Fantastic … could be worse. Could be a lot worse … least I don’t have to steal it back. _Fuck_. I knew I should have destroyed it.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Kinda hard t' destroy something when it’s a base entity of the entire universe.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. I couldn’t okay? So I did the next best thing.” The fact that there was something Skye wasn’t being told would be obvious to the most oblivious of people; Skye figured now wasn’t the best moment to ask what that mysterious something was.

“What do I do?” there was a strange irony here, Skye thought wryly. She had once sat on the other end of a phone call like this, with her friend uttering those fateful words in a moment of rare vulnerability. “Ari, what do I do?”

Perhaps her friend was remembering the same conversation in reverse – of course, Skye didn’t know all the details of the incident. Wasn’t even 100% sure of what Ari had been asking her help and advice about. All she knew was that it had involved Russia – and Russia was a huge-ass place, which hadn’t helped one bit.

See, there was between them an understanding: Ari would never lie to her, but Skye had to accept that there were things that Ari shouldn’t be telling her. Couldn’t be telling her. Another heavy sigh through the phone line. It sounded as though the gun-fight had stopped. For now. “What have you told them? I assume you had to say  _something_  to make sure they didn’t touch it.”

“Only that I recognised it from a picture and a little intel I saw during my Rising Tide days – enough to know it shouldn’t be touched. Bobbi knows I lied though.”

“Morse? Thought she’d gone down with the ship … guess there’s more to the Mockingbird than I thought.”

“Wha – how – you …?” Skye cleared her throat. “I’m not even gonna ask anymore.”

“Haven’t you realised yet? I know everybody,” she could  _hear_  the glint in Ari’s eye. “Look. Just play it cool yeah? I’ll swing by soon or something.” Ari paused, as if debating about if she should say more; “Skye … finding that thing now – I … this is bigger than you realise. Than anyone realises. Bigger and … and more _important_ and … no one realises.”

“Except you?”

A low laugh. “You’ll be fine – I gotta go …” The line went dead.

Skye lifted the phone away from her ear, a low sigh on her lips. “Bye.”

* * *

Melinda slumped down on a bench in Central Park. It was a dull grey morning, though bright enough to warrant the use of sunglasses. Her hands buried deep in the pockets of her warm jacket, she surveyed her immediate surroundings from behind her black tinted aviators while waiting patiently for the drop. She wasn’t sure what had happened to her purple ones … she’d have to buy another pair when she got the chance. Those were some ace aviators after all.

Maybe Skye had nicked them.

It was chilly so Melinda pulled her jacket tighter around her shoulders, and watched her breath mist before her and then disperse. In all fairness she was early; Nat’s drop wasn’t due for another forty minutes or so, but it wasn’t as though there was anything else she could do. And she didn’t have the money on her for a coffee or something from Starbucks – besides it wasn’t entirely safe with all those cameras. Technically she was still a terrorist.

Which reminded her; she’d have to talk to Coulson and Talbot about rectifying that. Melinda May was  _not_  a terrorist, and it was about time official records reflected that; it would be nice to go and have a coffee or go to an airport without having to give an alias all the time and make sure her backstory was watertight.

Staring up at the clouds, Melinda was lost in thought for a while, and when she looked back down at the park, it was in time to see a figure in a baggy hat and hunched over in an oversized jacket take a seat on the bench opposite her, far across on the other side of a patch of green. It was hard to judge who the figure was, but the identity didn’t matter – Nat had probably bribed some homeless guy with a hot meal to make the drop for her. Even as Melinda watched, the figure set a newspaper on the bench beside him – Melinda assumed it was a ‘him’ – got to his feet and then walked off.

Keeping her eye on the bench, Melinda waited a moment or two before she got to her own feet and made her way across to the other bench. Rounding the fountain, and shivering in the chill breeze, Melinda strode past the bench the figure had sat down on and snagged the paper before the family walking towards her settled there for their – rather courageous, Melinda thought – picnic. Who had a picnic in late September?

Shaking her head, she flicked through the paper and found a couple of leaflets and an envelope – probably for one of those you send off and in return you might win some things. Opening the envelope, Melinda saw Nat’s writing scrawled on the inside in block capitals; a time and some coordinates. And the letters B.A.R _burn after reading_ – deciding that burning the envelope would cause too much attention, and that Nat was probably just joking, Melinda memorised the message and tossed the paper in the bin she passed as she left the park.

Knowing Nat, she was going to make this incredibly complex and unnecessarily awkward – just for habit’s sake. And probably her own amusement. Sighing through her nose, Melinda headed for the subway as she calculated the best route to the next drop. She was going to throttle Nat if this took all day.

~

The sky was growing dim as Melinda approached the run-down shawarma joint. She was cold and tired and pissed off because Nat had kept her walking all across Manhattan all day, going from drop to drop and honestly – she didn’t see the point. Twice she had used her evasion tactics and doubled back on herself in case she’d picked up a tail … which she wasn’t certain she had. Damn Nat … getting her all paranoid for nothing.

Her last message had read:

_Last one. Promise XX_

And it had led her here.

A ‘ding-dong’ noise announced her opening the door as she stepped inside, her boots sticking slightly to the greasy floor and an old comedy re-run playing on the big screen above the counter. A young girl, younger than Skye even, was leaning despondently on the till, fiddling on her smart-phone. She glanced up as Melinda stepped inside but returned her attention to her phone. Looking round, Melinda found a table in the corner with good sight-lines and sat, picking up the laminated menu for something to do while she waited.

Not a minute later, a pair of troublemakers slid into the boot opposite and beside her, plucking the sticky laminated menu from her hands and discarding it on another table.

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you it’s rude to snatch Barton?”

“Nah. You always said t’ take what I want and take no shit from anyone … or was that Phil?”

“Phil always tried to teach you the benefits of saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’,” Natasha Romanoff responded before Melinda even opened her mouth.

“I didn’t come her to hear you two bickering,” Melinda said, cutting across before Clint could retort, he closed his mouth with an audible  _click_  of his back teeth. “How’s the wife?” she added after a beat.

He smiled. “Good. She’s good. And the kids. Thanks.” Melinda let the corner of her mouth spread into a smile, glad for him – all Clint Barton wanted was a quiet life with his family; yet he wasn’t the type to walk away when he was still needed. And by the looks of things, Nat still needed him.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Nat and Clint waiting for Melinda to get to the reason behind why she wanted this rendezvous and yet they knew she wasn’t likely to get to the point on her own without prompting.

“So … I hear Coulson’s back from the dead.”

Melinda closed her eyes with a small sigh. So this was where they’d start was it? Fine. Just fine. The last thing either Nat or Clint needed was hearing how annoyed and pissed she was with Phil just now – Nat and Clint always said the world would stop turning the day Melinda and Phil fell out. She didn’t want to destroy their faith in humanity.

“Fury needed his one good eye,” Melinda muttered darkly, wishing she had a drink of something strong for this.

“Fury needs to learn that when he can’t have something that doesn’t mean he needs to throw a hissy fit until he gets what he wants.” A voice Melinda recognised as belonging to Captain America said as he slid into the booth beside Clint. “Nice to see you again Agent May.”

“Coulson’s gonna wet himself when he finds out whose been stalking me,” Melinda muttered loud enough for the other three to hear her.

“Steve says you’re looking for Halo?”

Melinda threw Nat a glance. “You know she hates that nickname right?”

Nat’s lips twitched. “I seem to recall a conversation or two with her about how I should embrace the name ‘Black Widow’ because people weren’t going to stop calling me that, and how I should take it as my own and make it mean what I want it to mean.”

“You and me both,” Melinda nodded. “But consistency is not one of Ari’s strong suits.”

“What do you want her for?” Nat asked. “Because she hung around long enough to give Steve the Tahiti file and then disappeared just like she did when I was made an actual Shield agent and given a badge.”

“So you have no clue where she could be?”

“Nope. Sorry.”

“Damnit.” She suppressed the urge to groan in frustration. Simmons was counting on her! And Skye –  _Daisy damnit_  – was too, the girl was counting on her to  _do_  something before she took matters into her own hands. Skye was sometimes too headstrong for her own good (not that Melinda could talk; she too had once been like that) and Melinda wondered if their fractured relationship would mean Skye wouldn’t wait as long as she otherwise would for her to sort the problem out.

“Why do you need her so badly? What’s happened?” Clint asked, as tactical as ever. Needing to know if there was an issue and if he can think of how to help. Steve was sitting back in the booth beside the archer and letting the three of them talk.

“Because something’s happened that I need her to explain. Something that I  _know_  she has answers for and … and I really need those answers.”

Nat caught her eye and asked silently;  _have you told her yet?_  Melinda shook her head ever so slightly and Nat sighed through her nose. _The longer you put it off the worse it’ll be_. Clint and Steve pretended not to notice the exchange between the two super-spies.

Steve Rogers sat forwards on the table, “About what? You haven’t actually told us what’s happened.” His expression was one Peggy often had: I only have time to ask this once so don’t test me.

“There’s this … Monolith. A Kree Monolith that isn’t … of this earth. One of my agents – a good agent – has been absorbed by it and – well I need Ari to tell me how to get her out.”

“And you’re sure she knows how?” Steve asked. “If this thing is … well alien. I mean I remember Thor spoke one time of the Kree. How can you be sure she knows about this Kree thing?”

Melinda shared a look with Nat and Clint.

“Nobody told him yet?”

Clint shrugged. “It’s tryin’ t’ find the right moment.”

Steve cleared his throat and leant heavily on his elbows on the sticky table. “Oh I figured she’s not human a while back. The whole looking the same as she did when we first met during the war thing gave it away. She hasn’t aged a day in over seventy years.”

Melinda, Nat and Clint all looked at the Captain.

“What? Are you really that surprised we met before?”

“We shouldn’t be,” Melinda muttered.

Nat sat back and ran her hand through her hair. “Listen. I hate to break it to you, but the only way to find Ari is to wait until she finds you. You know how it is … she’s the only person I know who _willingly_  let herself get caught by the KGB and then who managed to walk away without them figuring out she was playing them. Somehow I doubt that she's just gonna  _let_  you find her."

Clint looked at Nat and tapped her hand to get her attention. “Hey – she may be … well … but she knows what she’s doing.”

“She walked into the KGB because I told her the only person who had a chance to get through to you was her.” Melinda added.

“Wait – what?” Steve was clearly confused.

Melinda decided just to tell the Captain: he wasn't someone she wanted to alienate by keeping things from. He was after all, a good ally to have.

“Okay. So when Clint was sent to kill the Black Widow, he didn’t,” Melinda began, figuring it was the best place to start.

Steve glanced at the archer. “Why not? Not that I mean – well … you had your orders?”

Clint fiddled with a napkin. “I was going to. But when I saw her I realised that she wasn’t really aware of what she was doing. That she was being controlled without knowing she was – if you get me? It was just all the little things that added up to that conclusion and I couldn’t shake it. So I couldn’t kill her. Not if there was a chance that she was a good person underneath the indoctrination and the control that she was under.”

Nat smiled across the table at him. “Turns out he was right.”

“Anyway,” Melinda continued. “Ari was running backend on the mission. She took it upon herself to figure out _how_. It wasn’t a sanctioned op by Shield, although I think our S-O was in on it.”

“Peggy?”

“Yes. Ari infiltrated the KGB singlehandedly and then walked back out again with none of them the wiser – not even Nat.”

“I didn’t realise until we met by the pier in LA.” Nat added, “I damn near killed her, she shocked me so much by just _appearing_ there next to me. I thought the KGB had found me.”

Steve shook his head.

“Anyway, Ari figured out that the way they were controlling me was a method not of this earth. She later told me she knew what it was because it had been used to control some people she’d met years and years before.”

“And what was it? That was used to control you?”

“Something called the Hyri. An orange stone-type thing that glowed … kinda like the gem in the Sceptre and the Tesseract … huh never realised that before.”

Nat glanced to Mel, who frowned and shrugged. “But since Ari had gotten through to the people she’d encountered before, enough to allow them to shake it off, I thought that she’d be able to do the same to Nat. Get her aware that she wasn’t in command of her mind and thoughts and all that and then let her do the rest and break free from it.”

Clint chuckled. “Wasn’t easy dealing with the un-controlled you though,” he said to Nat. “But me and Phil and Mel managed it somehow ... and we got Shield t’ give ya a chance.”

“I think Peggy Carter helped a bit. And Ari.” Nat added. “She carried some surprising weight with the Director and the Deputies for someone who – well …” Clint and Melinda just shrugged it off as something they’d never know.

Steve frowned, “But how did you …” he cleared his throat, “Agent May how did you know that Ari could do that?” he asked, eyes narrowed. “Get through to Nat because she’d done it to others before … how’d you know?”

“My history with Ari extends beyond what the Shield files say.”

Melinda didn’t say anything more on the matter: Natasha knew only because she had been there when Melinda had discovered that file all about a childhood she didn’t recall having. A file she hadn’t even told Peggy she’d found. Telling Nat the whole truth had been the only way for Melinda to save her neck and then get through to the recently-turned Shield Asset. Nat had needed to know there was someone who could empathise with her situation and that there was someone who also needed answers. The Russian had filled in the gaps in Melinda’s story with surprising accuracy.

Steve seemed to be contemplating something else, he sat with his elbows on the greasy table while Nat, Clint and Melinda watched and waited for him to speak. In truth Melinda just wanted to leave: this was nothing more than another dead-end and she really, really, needed to find Ari. Or at least return to the Playground before Skye throttled Phil in frustration.

“I did some research. Or Stark did. Through the old Shield and SSR files that Tasha put on the internet. Ari Carter, she was known as to the SSR. And Ari Dottir to Shield.”

Clint frowned. “Dottir? Sounds …”

“Scandinavian. Norse. Thor.” Nat finished. She glanced at Melinda who said nothing, not about to confirm or deny what she had figured out. “Ari’s alien – and has a Scandinavian surname that is half redacted … obvious conclusion: she’s from Asgard."

“So why doesn’t she have Asgardian strength like Thor and Loki?” Clint asked.

“And Steve.” Nat added.

“Huh?”

“Oh c’mon! It’s the only thing your strength resembles. Like somebody got hold of some Asgardian DNA and modified it to enhance a human.” Nat’s intelligence made everyone feel like children as per usual.

“I don’t know why she doesn’t have super-strength,” Melinda said slowly. “And as for Steve’s strength and Asgardian strength …” she didn’t finish. She didn’t know how … but her mind was wondering.

“Yeah … well. Just another answer I need to squeeze out of her when she next shows up. If you find her let me know won’t you?”

“If you do the same for me.” Melinda glanced at Nat, who slid out of the booth to allow her to leave. She straightened and glanced at the exit before looking back to the three Avengers. “Listen. Even if you do find her … Getting Ari to talk is futile. She’s never once shared anything against her will – she resisted interrogation, and I’m not talking the pleasant kind, for seventeen years and retained her silence. Do you honestly think there is anything you could do or say or threaten her with that will get her to tell you something if she doesn’t  _want_  to tell you?”

"So how d'you expect t' get her to help you then?" Clint pointed out. Melinda shrugged and Clint nodded. “Fair enough.”

Leaving the Captain and his two comrades to ponder that thought, Melinda pushed through the door of the shawarma joint and stepped out into the crisp air of the street. It was dark and the yellow light of industrialism flickered down from a shattered streetlamp while clouds obscured the half-moon. With a sigh, Melinda gave up her search and dug her phone out of her pocket, intending on calling Skye and telling her she was coming home.

But as she held it in her palm, it began to ring. The noise echoing down the deserted street. The contact flashed on the screen; ‘Mama ~ FSP S-h #7’.

Oh great.

Deciding to bit the bullet and see what her she wanted, Melinda accepted the call and placed it against her ear. “Hello mother –”

“Hey May. Long time, huh?”

Melinda’s blood ran cold. Ice filling her veins and freezing her heart. The breath seemed to have been sucked right from her chest at the sound of that voice. She pulled the phone away to check but it was definitely the number for one of the family safe houses. She replaced the phone to her ear.

“I swear to god, Ward, if you’ve laid so much as a finger on my mother I will fucking destroy you like I should’ve done  _months_  ago.”

He chuckled. “No, no – your mother isn’t here. But nice to know she means so much to you.”  _Damnit!_ “No, we just needed a place to lay low and happened across this place. The fact that it’s your childhood home now … well that just makes things much better.”

Melinda worked her jaw. Behind her she heard the three Avengers exiting the joint. “ _We?_ ” she dared ask.

“Yeah … decided there’s no place like home. And Hydra’s always been there for me so …”

“You’re sick. Fucking sick!”

Ward laughed down the line, and Melinda heard voices – though she couldn’t distinguish anything much. Ward answered in a low voice. “Yeah it’s her … Hang on –” he returned his attention to Melinda, “there’s someone here who wants a word …” the sound of static silence as the phone was handed over reached her ears. Clint caught her eye and mouthed if she was okay. She closed her eyes and mouthed back that she’d tell him in a moment.

“I always wondered what kind of person could murder an innocent child. What kind of monster Shield breeded to destroy that which it can't hope to understand. I suppose that it makes sense you would also be the person who took my daughter's love from me.”

If it was possible for Melinda’s blood to run any colder, it would’ve just then.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” she said in a hollow voice. Her interactions with the deluded leader of the Inhumans had been minimal at best, yet her distaste for Melinda had been evident in the way Skye had returned and then thrown Bahrain right back at her. They had barely even met for Christ's sake! The hostility Jiaying felt towards her was something much more ... personal ... something more than hatred for a person who'd taken the only viable course of action available, more than hatred for a person who had been forced to make an impossible choice.

“Funny that. But we Inhumans are blessed with wondrous gifts, and should we know how to use them, why then even death can be ... evaded. Where is my daughter?”

“Probably wishing she never met you … you didn’t exactly turn out to be the mother she had always dreamed of. But then the reality always falls short of the dream.”

“And whose fault is that? Who is the one who poisoned her against me?”

“So now you’re working with Hydra?” Melinda asked, attempting to steer the subject away from Skye; Steve instantly picked up on that single word 'Hydra' and turned to stare at her. “After what Whitehall did to you? I was wrong: Ward’s not the sick one here – you are.”

"A means to an end. We have similar goals you see; seeing Shield gone and my daughter safely at my side."

“You mean seeing her exploited for you purposes! Using her powers for your whims. I won’t let that happen! I won't let you use her!” There was only one thing she knew in that moment, only one thing that registered inside her. She would protect Skye until her last breath. She would defend Skye until well after the world ended. She would never stop standing between danger and Skye. She didn’t think she could and she wouldn’t even if she had a choice. She wasn’t going to let Ward and Jiaying hurt her again. Ever. She wasn't going to let anyone hurt her.

“She belongs with us! With her _mother_. And you – you are not her mother!”

_I’ve been a better mother to her than you ever could be._

Melinda didn’t bother to reply. She hung up. It took no genius to figure out that Ward was blaming her for Agent 33’s death, and if what Jiaying was saying was anything to go by, the woman  _also_  was holding a grudge against her and blaming her for Skye’s choice. Perfect. And they were working together. Excellent. Just what she needed.

“Mel? What’s up?” Nat asked. “Melinda?”

Ignoring Nat for the moment, she searched through her contacts for the number of her mother’s mobile. Not that her mother liked having it – preferring to use a landline telephone device or a payphone. Being only two years younger than Peggy, and yet benefitting from the effects of a blood transfusion from both Peggy and Melinda, Lian May was still going as strong as ever despite being ‘retired’ and she much detested all this new-age advance tech. Or so she said.

Her mother took an age to pick up. "Mama –"

“I was wondering when you’d call,” she said, not giving Melinda a chance to get anything more out. “Now perhaps you’ll tell me who you’ve pissed off this time and why my house has been invaded? Melinda? Answer me! You will answer me this instant or I'll -"

Melinda sighed and hung up.

“Did you just hang up on your mother?” Nat asked, incredulous.

“I’ll let her kill me for it later. But first I need your help.”

“With Hydra?” Steve asked.

Melinda nodded. She couldn’t run the risk of Skye getting involved – she had to protect her from both Ward and Jiaying. She wouldn’t put Skye in the situation where she may have to be responsible for stopping her mother … where she would have to choose - again - between who she'd been born and who she had become. Which was why Melinda was going to have some Avenger-style back up: between her, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Captain America, they should be more than a match for a soul-sucking Inhuman and one of Shield’s finest Hydra agents.

She just hoped Skye understood when she eventually learned about it. She was just trying to protect her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. so i have a plan now for where this is going yay!!
> 
> as per usual let me know what you thought :)


	7. Agent Toss-Pot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye Makes A Break Through ...

Skye ducked underneath Mack's wild swing and landed a blow to the mechanic's ribs before hooking her foot round his ankle and bringing the big man crashing to the mats with a grunt. She backed away a step ready for the retaliation by the big man lifted his hands in surrender and got awkwardly to his feet.

“Nice one Tremors,” he smiled. Skye nodded and left the mats, grabbing her towel and water bottle before leaving the gym swiftly: she wasn’t in any mood to chat and Mack liked to chat after a workout, especially _about_ the workout, so to spare him a curt and somewhat rude response, Skye left before he could get a word out. She’d apologise to him later but right now she was tired and annoyed and downright frustrated … and it wasn’t even nine am yet. Here she was, a perfectly good agent, and she was being left out of every op and mission: it wasn’t as if she _needed_ to be left out because she was inexperience or a danger to others.

Skye often found herself day dreaming of how slowly and painfully she was going to kill Weaver. The bitch was afraid of anything she couldn’t explain away with science. And even then, if she could explain the unknown and unknowable with science, well then she’d probably decide it was way too dangerous and needed containing and destroying. It was only a matter of time before she had Skye and Lincoln locked up – or tried to.

Damnit fuck.

May was who-knows-where and not picking up or replying to her. So much for that super-duper encrypted data cloud she’d invented. Might as well as told May to bring back holiday snaps and a souvenir … But perhaps if she messaged May and told her what a massive bitch with a capital B Weaver was being then May would reply with a sure fire way to ensure the ex-SicOps don’s body was never found … Or not. May would probably tell her to stop being so overdramatic and to get Coulson to decide something about his hand.

And that wasn’t going to happen when Coulson was flat-out avoiding her. It was like he no longer cared about the individual members of his team anymore and that he had finally undergone his transformation into the ‘Ass-Hole Director of Shield'. Like he had finally Fury-ised himself into ‘Director Mode’. And it was fucking pathetic because Skye was pretty sure that half the reason Fury passed on the mantel to Coulson was because Fury lacked the human touch Coulson still had – and that he wanted Coulson to take charge because Coulson was able to relate to individuals and actually _cared_ about his agents.

Knowing full well that this line of thought was only going to make her feel even worse than she already was, Skye decided to occupy her mind with something else. Something she could _act_ on and gain something from … something less harmful and soul-destroying and faith-in-humanity-destroying. Something Coulson wouldn’t put his foot down and get suspicious about. Something that could potentially give her an excuse to leave the base for a few days, get a bit of fresh air and sunshine … maybe hit the beech while it was still relatively warm ish …

Then it came to her: so she knew that Shield had taken her from her parents and put her into the orphanage for whatever reason. And she knew she was technically classed as an 0-8-4; she knew that the team sent to retrieve her wasn’t aware that it was _her_ they were extracting and that they had assumed the 0-8-4 was an object. So … who was the agent that called in the need for an extraction team? Who decided that she needed to be taken away from her parents?

Skye wasn’t naïve enough to believe that things would’ve been hunky dory if she had been left with Cal and Jiaying: they were both psychos in their own way and who knows – maybe she would’ve become one too … but still. Skye wanted to know the identity of the person who made the decision to take her away. She would like to stare the agent in the face and demand to know _why_.

With that in mind, Skye forwent her shower and headed straight to the Intelligence, Analysis and Communications unit where she fired up the computers, dragged the comfy office chair to the holo-table-tablet and set to work. Gathering all data she could find and sorting through it on that huge-ass holo-table-tablet thing. She didn’t have very much: only what she had originally found out from hacking into Shield and what Coulson and May had discovered and then passed on to her … somewhat reluctantly on Coulson’s part. At least May had never agreed with keeping what they’d found out from her.

Sighing Skye thought about how she was going to go about tracking down the agent who had taken her – in her mind Skye had already named them ‘Agent Toss-Pot’. Finding the file that issued the extraction team consisting of Avery and others would probably be the best place to start: no doubt in that file somewhere was a link to Agent Toss-Pot’s op. At least, Skye hoped it would be that easy … in all actuality it probably wouldn’t be, but she was hopeful nonetheless.

An hour in and all she had was a transcript from Agent Toss-Pot requesting backup for an extraction that had been slipped into the Hunan 0-8-4 operation file.

 ** ~~光環~~** : _Request immediate assistance. Item of vital importance needs relocating to safety._

Operator: _Please advise nature of item._

 ** ~~光環~~** : _Negative. No time._

Operator: _Where did it come from?_

 ** ~~光環~~** : _Unknown. Look I need back up and I need it now. It’s not safe here._

Operator: _You are in possession of an unknown item, correct?_

 ** ~~光環~~** : _Yes – I guess –_

Operator: _Please hold._

 ** ~~光環~~** : _I can’t bloody hold! Don’t you get the part about needing help and needing it now? How the hell do you expect me to hold!_

Operator: _Can you advise nature of threat?_

 ** ~~光環~~** : _Affirmative. Dangerous. Heavy back up advised. PCMD want item._

Operator: _Strike Team Seven can be dispatched. Will reach SafeHouse Blue in an hour._

 ** ~~光環~~** : _Negative. SafeHouse Blue compromised. Meet at following location. Coordinates to follow._

Operator: _Copy that. Awaiting Coordinates._

 ** ~~光環~~** : ~~_North. 28 degrees. 2 minutes. 49.488 seconds. East. 112 degrees. 48 minutes. 39.047 seconds. Repeat. (N. 28° 2’ 49.488” E. 112° 48’ 39.047”)_~~

Operator: _Coordinates received. ~~28 degrees. 2 minutes 49.88 seconds North. 112 degrees. 48 minutes, 39.047 seconds East.~~_

 ** ~~光環~~** : _Copy that. ETA?_

Operator: _Seventy minutes._

 ** ~~光環~~** : _Copy that. Over and out._

Frustration threatened to overwhelm her. Was it too much to ask for a name?

Calming down, Skye took a deep breath; in through her nose and out through her mouth. Agent Toss-Pot’s name had been redacted but Skye figured there was enough in the transcript for her to back trace the original. She also suspected that a codename had been used because this was Shield after all and nothing was ever simple with Shield. It did make Skye chuckle because what was the point in issuing Toss-Pot with a codename if sed codename was then redacted?

But at least the transcript’s time stamp hadn’t been redacted. 27 June 1989. Just shy of her first birthday … Now … to find either the file of unredacted documents or the original op file detailing Agent Toss-Pot’s mission brief. Ideally Skye would like the op file but she could probably find it after finding the unredacted version of the transcript.

When Skye did uncover the unredacted file, after several hours of fruitless hacking and swearing and near quake-ing, it didn’t reveal anything other than what Skye suspected was a codename. In a shoddily translated Chinese dialect. **光環** : Guānghuán. Skye’s Chinese wasn’t as good as May’s but it was better than whoever had picked the codename. She figured the translation was meant to be something like ‘aura’. Which was so not helpful.

And though she had now also discovered the op file with Agent Toss-Pot’s mission brief, it gave Skye no new information other than the fact that Gonzales had been the Overseeing Agent and that the op had been an undercover mission to investigate ‘ab-normal’ human activity in the Hunan province. At least Agent Toss-Pot had left out any reference to Inhumans and ‘super-humans’ and had passed on virtually little intel back to the Hong Kong HQ. For whatever reason, the agent had kept silent about whatever had been discovered in and about the province. Until Agent Toss-Pot requested immediate backup and extraction.

Searching the databases, Skye found no other mission that used ‘Guānghuán’ as a codename for an agent – or even at all. Which had Skye suitably frustrated.

In danger of bringing the room down around her, the hacker-super-hero-agent took a break and headed for that shower to wash off the dried on sweat from her workout with Mack earlier on. She was also feeling peckish so decided to find some lunch once she’d washed and freshened up somewhat. Leaving the IAC unit running, Skye abandoned the room and her fruitless search for the identity of Agent Toss-Pot.

* * *

_“You’re angry at me for leaking all those files.”_

_Ari rarely glared at her. In fact she was rarely ever angry with Skye. But when she was … Skye often had that sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that accompanied disappointment. Ari was glaring at her. Eyes narrowed and a look that could probably kill – if Skye wasn’t well aware how fond Ari was of her. In fact she was ninety-nine per cent sure that the only reason she was still alive was because Ari cared about her too much to turn her in to whoever she was working for … or with – Ari was never clear about that._

_“Damn straight I am!” she yelled, getting to her feet and storming across Miles’ small flat to stand right in Skye’s face. Skye was grateful her boyfriend was currently elsewhere. She didn’t need anything more for Ari to be pissed and overprotective about. “There are some things the public doesn’t need to know!”_

_But Skye wasn’t having it. Not this time. Not about this. “Yeah right. The government shouldn’t be keeping stuff secret! People can handle the truth!”_

_Skye could count their arguments on one hand. There really weren’t that many. But this seemed to be one that wasn’t going to end well. Ari had secrets and Skye respected that in so far as she knew Ari had never once lied to her, and she appreciated how difficult that must be for her, but what Skye couldn’t abide by was the government hiding things from the people they were supposed to be protecting and looking out for. What she couldn’t stand was Ari protecting and defending the very people who lie and scheme and keep secrets for the sake of keeping secrets._

_“Can they? Really?”_

_Skye shook her head; Ari wasn’t going to let this go any more than she was._

_“Yes. People can handle the truth! The public is a lot smarter than the government gives them credit for.”_

_“A person is intelligent. People are stupid. You tell the people what’s really going on and they’ll panic and riot. Before long you’ll have anarchy on your hands because someone will think they’re better suited to deal with the problems – but in all actuality the truth is_ no one _is better suited to dealing with all this shit. Do you want to be responsible for the collapse of governments across the globe?”_

_Skye wasn’t listening. All she could hear was a load of bull and it peed her off to no end. “What happened to make you mistrust people so badly? What the fuck is wrong with you? You're so goddamned cagey it's no wonder no one can fucking stand you!"_

_As soon as she said it, Skye wished she could take the words back._

_Ari didn’t even dignify that with a response as she walked out._

* * *

She wasn’t too sure why, as she washed off the dried on sweat and grime from her workout, that little episode came back to her. It certainly wasn’t one her proudest moments. Skye hadn’t seen Ari for a good four months after that incident, despite calling Ari at least a thousand times to apologise for what she’d said … and then to ask for advice. In fact the only reason Skye had seen Ari again was because they happened to both be in Dublin at the same time a couple of months after the New York shit. But Skye hadn’t had time to do more than give her friend a cursory apology.

But she had picked up the other day … and had promised to drop by when she had a chance … maybe Skye would take her for a drink or something as a proper apology … or something. It'd be weird though ... seeing her again after so long and now that everything had changed - that  _she_ had changed - would Ari even recognise her? Was she still the same person who'd said those cruel words to her friend without a second's thought? Was she better now? Worse? And Ari ... how had she fared in the years since they'd last seen each other?

Emerging from the showers fresh and clean and feeling somewhat better, Skye listened to the rumblings of her stomach and made her way to the kitchen seeing as it was around lunch time. She hadn’t bothered to dry or even brush her hair – it was getting far too long and she’d just shoved it in a knot at the back of her head and left it. Maybe she’d get it cut soon? Perhaps Bobbi could do if for her later, if she wasn’t too busy being Simmons in the lab with Fitz as they – secretly – tried to continue the search for a way to rescue the lost biochemist.

Coulson was in the kitchen.

Deciding to risk it, Skye entered and headed straight over to the kettle, which she filled and switched on. Reaching up to find the tea from China, Skye glanced at Coulson and gauged he was in a reasonable mood enough to warrant talking to.

“You want one?”

“Hmm?” he looked up from the paper he’d been reading. “Oh no thanks,” he gestured to the mug by his right arm and Skye nodded. “How’s your day been?” He asked closing the broadsheet and looking up at her.

Skye shrugged. “Slow. As ever. Getting pissed that Weaver won’t put me on anything other than backend.”

Coulson frowned. “I didn’t know that …”

Skye resisted the urge to say what was on her mind. Now was not the time. “Yeah … well I needed something to take my mind off Weaver and how utterly –” she cut herself off. “But I was spending my time trying to track down the agent who actually took me from my parents. Y’know?”

Sitting back, Coulson looked at her, “No … what do you mean? Avery?”

“No. I meant – the agent who called in the need for Avery’s team to go in and retrieve me. I’m trying to figure out who that was. Have a few questions, ya know?”

Coulson nodded. “Oh I see. Any luck?”

Sky shook her head. “Nope. Nada. Just dead end after dead bloody end.” Her stomach chose that moment to remind her that she was hungry. “Do you want anything? I’m gonna make some food.”

She could tell that Coulson was trying to determine if there was any hidden meaning behind her question – wondering if perhaps she was asking because she felt sorry for him … or something. But he either decided to accept help or decided he was too hungry to faff about trying to make a sandwich one-handed.

Pulling out a pan, Skye gathered the ingredients required to make omelettes as Coulson returned to the topic of Agent Toss-Pot. Not that the Director was aware that was what Skye was calling the agent. “Where have you got to?”

“Hmm?”

“Your search for the agent?”

“What? For Agent Toss-Pot?” she asked over her shoulder, not really thinking of how childish she sounded right then.

Coulson chuckled.

“Oh … yeah … um … well I managed to locate the file that sent Avery and her team in. There was a transcript from Agent Toss-Pot requesting backup, though the agent’s name was redacted along with the rendezvous co-ordinates. When I found the unredacted version all I got was a codename which doesn’t come up in any other Shield reports or missions. The co-ordinates are just for some spot by a stream in the middle of Chinese-nowhere. I looked into the original file, but there wasn’t much. Agent Toss-Pot kept missing briefings and stuff and they assumed the agent dead after there was no contact after the call in for backup. Gonzales went ape-shit by all accounts when Toss-Pot showed up.”

“Gonzales?”

Skye nodded. “He was the Managing Agent overseeing the undercover op. Though Agent Toss-Pot never said anything about Inhumans or people with powers so I assume there must be a reason because why else would I have been taken?”

“I’m sure there’s a valid reason,” Coulson agreed and they fell silent. “What was the codename?” he asked a few minutes later.

Skye concentrated on the omelettes for a moment, “Um … it was Chinese – Guānghuán.”

Coulson chuckled. “Well May gave up trying to teach me Chinese so … what does it mean?”

It was Skye’s turn to chuckle. “Aura … but I searched for the translation too but came up with nothing – no ops where that codename has been used in any translation.”

Coulson sighed but said nothing. Skye finished their lunch in silence and served up. Conversation turned to Bobbi and Hunter and Coulson wondered out loud where May was. Skye felt bad so she let him know that her S-O had returned and then left again about half an hour later – she didn’t tell him why and Coulson didn’t ask. Skye realised things between the pair of them were still in need of fixing. She just hoped they didn’t go months before speaking again like she and Ari had done.

Why was she thinking so much on her friend suddenly? She could hardly go two minutes without thinking about her … it was like, since Ari had picked up her call, there was nothing Skye could do without wondering about her. Like that confirmation that Ari was indeed still alive and well and stirring up trouble had flicked a switch inside Skye’s head and now Skye was constantly wondering after her friend. Wondering and distracted because _what the hell was she doing?_

“You might want to try using synonyms of the codename.”

“Huh?” Skye finished the last mouthful of her omelette and looked up at the Director, forcing herself back to earth and away from her errant friend. Coulson seemed tired and worn out, like he wasn’t sleeping. Something was weighing heavily on him and Skye almost asked what it was, before reasoning that he wasn’t going to tell her.

“It was a Shield trick. Using synonyms of the original codename for future operations. In any language.”

“A trick you used?”

He snorted. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “It helped protect the agents.”

“Makes things bloody difficult for me though,” Skye grumbled.

“But then you wouldn’t be our best hacker if it was easy.”

She shrugged.

“Think about it. I’m sure you could come up with a way to narrow down the search parameters. A way to predict which synonyms and spellings would be used.” Coulson got to his feet and took his plate over to the sink. Whereas a few months ago he would’ve washed his plate there and then, he just turned on the tap and left. Disappearing back to his office.

 _Director Mode … On_.

Shaking her head, Skye washed the dishes then made her way back to the IAC unit. Coulson’s advice ringing in her ears and she figured, what the heck. Taking most the afternoon to come up with a viable algorithm that would search synonyms of ‘aura’ in every language spoken across the globe as well as the scraps of alien languages that Shield had managed to translate, though hopefully it would be worth it. It would be worth all that agro if she managed to find a name she could investigate and talk to at the end of it. A name and a face she could yell at.

She sat back and waited patiently wondering if there was going to produce anything. She wasn’t hopeful and begun to think that Agent Toss-Pot didn’t want to be found … which – well Skye was sure the agent wouldn’t want to be found by _her_ at any rate. ‘Oh hey, hi. I’m the baby you took from those Inhumans. Can you tell me why please?’ Yeah. No. Skye wouldn’t want to be in Toss-Pot’s position right now … not that Toss-Pot knew Skye was looking for his or her identity.

The search began issuing results, though most weren’t helpful. Some had the actual names of the Agents alongside the codename and Skye began to search the agents’ personnel files. She disregarded almost all of them simply because they were either too young to have been an operating agent in 89 or had been on other operations during the time period Toss-Pot was in Hunan on the undercover operation.

Eventually the algorithm churned out a name that had an Agent Identification Tag next to it rather than a name. Curious, Skye highlighted the tag: CL-10_77b*80gj^ff. It was a simple matter of inputting that AIT into the Shield Personnel database and waiting:

_Loading … loading … loading …_

After a minute the database announced that she was now looking at all the information linked to the Identification Tag. Except that there was nothing on the screens. A large number of screens were supposedly displaying all the intel … except that there was nothing there. At all. Like absolutely nothing. Not even the ID Tag.

Skye had to consciously control the urge to shatter the screens and reduce the IAC unit to rubble. Until … Skye back peddled and had another look at that ID tag.

CL-10_77b*80gj^ff.

CL-10.

Clearance Level 10.

Fuck Coulson.

 _Of course_ … there had to be another layer of encryption underneath the database’s firewalls that only allowed access to those of a Level Ten Security Clearance Level. And she distinctly recalled Coulson saying he’d gotten rid of the levels …

_Liar, liar, pants on fire …_

It took no more than ten minutes. Child’s play really. But Skye was now looking at the list of aliases and codenames of the agent who’d taken her from her parents:

* * *

CL-10_77b*80gj^ff

Halo

Shadoh

光環 | Guānghuán

Halysis

Венчик | Venchik

El Nimbo

प्रभामंडल | Prabhāmaṇḍala

Kia Tolmachyov

Red Viper

Jane Mathews

Fiona Harrow

Lucy Yang

Kelly Douglas

Lana Franklin

Constance Brooke

A Carter

***Dottir

Wind

Spark

* * *

But it wasn’t the names Skye’s gaze flickered to and were stuck staring at. It wasn’t the names that struck a chord of recognition deep within her. It was the picture: a face Skye knew so well – knew better, in fact, than her own. A face she wouldn’t forget. Ever. A face she had last seen staring at her from the blood soaked floor of a grungy warehouse in Dublin three years ago after four months of stubborn silence. A face that had been glaring at her with hard – if slightly pain filled – eyes telling her only one thing: Run.

So Skye had ran.

Ran and ran until the dreams eventually stopped haunting her conscience. Ran and ran until she convinced herself – correctly – that her friend had somehow survived eight bullets to the chest. Ran until Shield caught up with her. Ran and ran until here she sat, staring at a picture of a face she couldn’t get out of her head.

_I knew you had secrets I accepted you had secrets. I just didn’t realise you were keeping secrets about me._

 

_Why are you keeping secrets about me?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies - I was editing the chapter and messed it all up. So I've re uploaded it.
> 
> Anyways. As I said; I had this chapter all written out and then it wouldn't save. FFS. which peed me off. 
> 
> Hope you liked it and let me know what you think :) if it helps I have an outline of where I am taking this so yay!!
> 
> :)


	8. June 1994

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1994
> 
> ~ when the other orphans tell Little Mary Sue Poots she can't play with them, Mary Sue Poots makes a new friend ~

**1994\. June. Some City. USA. Earth.**

* * *

Angry and frustrated and upset and feeling every other related emotion under the sun, little Mary Sue Poots stomped over towards a bench while the other orphans continued playing happily on the playground apparatus. Gossiping wildly, the nuns overseeing their play ignored her. From what she had seen on the climbing frame (before Johnny Falkner told her to go away) the bench on the opposite side of the playground to the nuns was empty – which suited her just fine.

As she passed the slide, Mary Sue Poots’s heart dropped like a stone. Someone was sitting on the bench already. Looking round desperately for another empty bench, she found none … and if she sat on the ground she’d get her dress all mucky and get told off for it – and probably not allowed dinner too. She felt tears threaten to spill down her face as her bottom lip trembled.

It was so unfair!

Dashing away the spiteful tears before anyone (the other orphans) could see and tease her for being such a baby, Mary Sue Poots took another look at the person sitting on the bench. It was a lady – although she didn’t look really old like the nuns or other adults; more like she was an adult (so she was still responsible and got listened to) but only just. Frowning and taking a small step closer, Mary Sue Poots noticed that she had a kind and pretty face, with long blonde hair and a fairly average frame. She was listening to a Walkman and wearing jeans, a band t-shirt and a battered leather jacket: the red varnish on her nails was chipped.

Mary Sue Poots decided bravely that she liked this person. She didn’t look all that terrifying and gave off the kind of vibes Mary Sue Poots always imagined a very-best-friend would: like you can tell them absolutely anything and what you said would be safe and secret forever. So, glancing over her shoulder when Johnny Falkner shouted loudly and excitedly, she trotted over to the bench and climbed up into the seat at the other end from the girl – adult – listening to her music and settled herself down for the long wait. Resting against the back of the bench, she kicked her legs wildly, bored, as she stared gloomily at the others playing their games.

She didn’t notice the sidelong glance the girl – adult – sitting next to her was giving her. Didn’t notice the small frown and the darting eyes which took in the entire situation in less than a few seconds. She didn’t notice the calculative look that reached a conclusion (the correct conclusion) in less than half the time it’d take anyone else to reach. Didn’t notice the small sigh of comprehension. She didn’t notice the green eyes softening and a steady resolve settling in like a burst of sunshine after an ugly storm or a downpour of rain. Or perhaps she _did_ notice, but just didn’t understand what it was she was seeing and noticing, being – after all – only about four.

The pair of them sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Little Mary Sue Poots had almost forgotten about the other person sitting on the bench, busy kicking her short legs and letting them swing freely, when she spoke.

“So what is it? You don’t like them, or they don’t like you?”

Eyes wide, she turned, confused, to the girl sitting beside her. She’d pulled off her headphones – the music was loud enough for Mary Sue Poots to hear now the headphones weren’t over the older girl’s ears. Some type of cool music the nuns would tell the older children off for playing. There was a small encouraging half-smile on her face, and a kind glint in her eyes – a glint that Mary Sue Poots recognised (from seeing it in the eyes of the other orphans when they were planning something) as a sign of having a mischievous streak a mile and a half wide, which immediately got her attention: she always found adults so boring.

“Erm … both – I guess?”

The girl – adult – nodded once. “Yeah … well, their loss, huh?”

“S’pose.” Mary Sue Poots wasn’t convinced.

“What’s y' name?”

“What’s _yours_?” she countered.

Another laughing look. Amusement. But not condescending. Mary Sue Poots realised that this adult actually _liked_ her … after a few words of conversation someone had decided they actually liked her. Mary Sue Poots felt elated – and then she felt afraid. Because all too soon this adult was going to change her mind and ignore her like everyone else always did.

“Well, I’m Ari.”

“Ari? That’s a pretty name.”

“You think so?”

She nodded and smiled, desperate for this person to remain liking her. Ari’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly for a split second and then she gave that laughing look again – as if she could see right through Mary Sue Poots and wasn’t at all bothered by the truth. As if she found it endearing. As if she didn’t care because she could see Mary Sue Poots’ soul and found it to be bright and good and everything the nuns said it wasn’t.

“So I’ve told m’name – you gonna tell me yours?”

She spoke kinda funny – sort of like how Mary Sue Poots did; not all properly and eloquently but sort of … common and not all that bothered about the proper words. Spoke in the way the nuns always told her off for speaking. It made her feel less out of place and odd.

“I don’t like m’name.”

“No?” Ari smiled, “I don’t like mine … so I just say Ari when somebody asks it.”

This piped up her curiosity. “What you _s’posed_ t’ be called ’hen?”

Another grin. “If I tell you … will you tell me yours?” Mary Sue Poots nodded, keen to hear the supposed terrible name that Ari hated. She shifted on the bench so she was kneeling, with her hands on her knees, facing Ari.

“Jhora.”

Mary Sue frowned. It didn’t seem such an awful name – simple and easy to remember. She wondered why Ari used something completely different. But even so, it wasn’t a name Mary Sue had heard before, and it sounded almost made-up. “Weird name. Like … kinda made-up an’ like – y’know … _weird_.”

“Well I come from a place that’s …” Ari’s lips twitched in a somewhat sarcastic smile, “ _different_ from here. See I’m not from around here and people have different names where I come from. They sound strange and made-up here but where I come from your names sound made-up.”

Mary Sue nodded, not sure she totally got it, but she nodded anyway. “Still weird,” she huffed.

Ari smiled. “So … you gonna tell me your name now?”

Heaving a huge sigh that blew her fringe up and caused Ari to laugh, she plunged in and told it to her new friend. “Mary Sue Poots …” she muttered under her breath.

“Ouch.” Ari said sympathetically, “Did the nuns give it to you?”

She nodded dully … then decided to tell the truth in a low voice. “M’parents didn’t want me.”

“I’m sure there’s more to it than that,” Ari said softly. They fell back into silence again and watched the other orphans playing happily – ish – in the playground. “You could always call yourself something different. Y’know – something you’d like people to call you. After all, the only one who knows you is you – remember that.”

“Okay … yeah …”

Mary Sue thought about it for a while. It was a very good idea. And if Ari could do it then so could she. So what should she call herself then? It was such a big important question … sighing such a mighty sigh for one so small and young, which caused Ari to laugh out loud, she tilted her head back and slumped against the bench and looked up at the clouds. Fluffy and white – hey that one looked like a dolphin! – but calling herself Cloud would just make her even weirder than she already was.

She then heard a voice in the back of her mind, a soft voice … warm ... and the kind of voice a mother would have; full of love and hope and a silent assurance of always being loved, cherished, adored and wanted – she’d even say it was a memory but quickly dismissed the thought. A voice that seemed to be screaming the glaringly obvious choice of a name at her. A name that she _knew_ was hers and had always been hers and would always be hers. It was as if until then, that she had just been waiting to discover the name as her own: and once she claimed it as hers then she would start to know who she _really_ was. Like this name was the start of her figuring out who she was supposed to be. Who she could be.

_Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye._

“Skye.” Skye said abruptly, sitting forwards again and looking up at Ari.

Ari’s smiling and gentle face suddenly – inexplicably – transformed. A hard frown, a look of shock and recognition and then a calculative gleam in her eyes took over. She sat back against the back of the bench and stared unwaveringly at little Skye. Thinking. Ari had suddenly and inexplicably turned all serious and boring like the other adults – she even _looked_ more like an adult now too … and it scared Skye. It really scared her. All this happened in the space of about three seconds.

“What did you just say?” Ari asked. Her voice had even changed – more serious and more precise and more grownup. Her voice sounded the same as some of the people in that TV show the nuns watched from Eng-a-Land. The one with the Vicar in a village.

Skye was confused – had she done something wrong? She faltered over the name as she said it, “I … I … S-Skye?”

Ari lifted her head and nodded once very slowly, turning away and gazing out over the play park. Her face was a blank mask yet behind it young Skye sensed a great many emotions were clamouring to break loose. Skye peered at her, eyes narrowed, and looked, _really_ , looked at the suddenly grownup Ari. The older girl’s eyes were darting everywhere, looking, seeking, searching, finding, and she was chewing on her bottom lip; to Skye it seemed like Ari was thinking and thinking _hard_. Thinking about things Skye would probably never ever understand. But Ari’s reaction to Skye picking her new name was … it threw Skye.

It scared her. But she knew with an absolute certainty that she wasn’t going to give this name up now she had found it. She couldn’t. She was Skye. She was _meant_ to be Skye.

“Why don’t you go and ask if you can play now?”

Skye knew a dismissal when she heard one. Heart plummeting like a pile of stones, she slid off the bench dejectedly. And she’d been having such a nice time … ish. She thought she’d made a new friend too …

“Ok _aay_ ,” she muttered, starting to walk over to the other orphans, dragging her feet along the ground as she went. She didn’t look back at the grownup seeming Ari still sitting on the bench, staring unwaveringly at her.

“Skye wait –” Ari sighed heavily through her nose. The way she said her name, it was like she’d been calling Skye ‘Skye’ for years: she didn’t even have to think about it. “Just … I didn’t mean to –”

At that moment, the nuns began yelling at the orphans that it was time to go: they had clearly finished gossiping about whatever and realised it was getting dark. Skye watched Ari hopefully, but she didn’t say anything more, she just sat back on the bench and resumed chewing her lip as her face fell into a look little Skye would realise in years to come was the look Ari always got when she was deep in thought and contemplating something practically unfathomable – a look she got when she was about to pull connections between random events out of thin air and when something would suddenly seemingly make sense. A look Ari got when she was comprehending the incomprehensible.

Sighing again, Skye turned away and trotted over towards the nuns and orphans unaware that Ari was staring at her small back with and unblinking gaze, a thousand hidden thoughts raging inside her head spiralling into a mighty crescendo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a little flash-back here of when Skye and Ari met ... what did you think???
> 
> :) Lemme know what you thought (and if you like the flash backs)
> 
> edit: I've changed Ari's real name because I think it sounds better and more Asgardian-y


	9. Talking Sense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye Realises Something & May Meets Her Mother ...

It made sense.

Thinking about it.

It made sense.

But it did nothing to settle the questions in her mind. Or the fact that she was going to lamp Ari one when they next saw each other. Her friend’s favourite nick name for Skye suddenly made a ton of sense too: Dayz. Daisy. Why hadn’t she said anything? The simple solution was to track down her errant friend and ask her face to face.

_“I – I might know someone … someone who’s not from around here.”_

_“‘Not from around here’? Now why does that phrase sound familiar? Someone – what, like an alien from another world? Like Thor?”_

Could it be … could it –?

No … could it?

Was Ari the alien someone May was out there looking for? The alien someone who knows about the Kree Rock and how to get Simmons out of it? The turn of phrase May had used struck a chord within as being Ari’s fall back explanation as to why she was different: I’m not from around here.

_No …?_

It made sense.

Thinking about it.

It made sense.

She almost wished it didn’t. Because if there was one thing Skye knew, it was that Ari was not going to give out any information if she didn’t want to. But she also knew, deep inside, that if there _was_ anyone who could get something out Ari, then it would be her.

After spending the night pacing the common room, wrestling over what to do and how to proceed and trying to decipher the complex web of emotion raging inside her, Skye glanced out of the window as the sun rose and stopped. Quite apart from anything else, she was sick and tired of this base and the hostility radiating off Weaver: she was going to find her friend and she was going to get some fucking answers out of her.

She marched off to Coulson’s office intent on telling him she had a lead and was going to follow it through. Alone.

* * *

Melinda met her mother alone. She’d promised the Avengers that she’d rendezvous with the three of them at a nearby café once she had explained the situation to her mother. In all honesty she just wanted a chance to gauge her mother’s mood before subjecting the Avengers to her.

They were meeting at the cemetery. Wishing she’d taken up the shop-keeper’s offer for a pair of discounted gloves when she’d bought the cheap bouquet: the weather had turned very bitter for September and her hands were getting chapped in the bitter cold, Melinda threaded her way through the lines of tombstones as she headed deeper and deeper into the heart of the graveyard. She was a few minutes early because she wanted a chance to pay her respects to her father before her mother showed up.

Of course, like mother like daughter, Lian May had had the same thought.

She spotted her mother’s figure standing small and hunched under a long coat at the foot of the grave. As Melinda approached, her mother glanced up and met her gaze for a moment before turning back to the tombstone. A hard unyeilding gaze that revealed nothing, a gaze Melinda had inherited - or perhaps had perfected from her mother. Melinda sighed, biting the bullet, and stepped off the path to join her mother three rows back from the concrete.

The grave was looking a little dejected: weeds were growing by the bottom of the slab where a name was obscured. Leaves and muck covered the old marble. Lian May hadn’t bought flowers. Without speaking, Melinda stepped forwards and crouched down bedside the headstone as she began cleaning the much off the marble.

“Leave it,” Lian said crisply. “It’ll only get all gungy again. Melinda. Leave it I said!”

Melinda ignored her mother and continued peeling the moss and leaves and muck off the slab of marble until she could see her father’s name and his date of birth followed by his date of death. She took a moment to just look at it before then yanking up some of the weeds and then placing the cheap bouquet at the bottom of the tombstone. She murmured a low apology for the crappiness of the flowers, and for not visiting often enough before she got slowly to her feet again and re-joined her mother at the foot of the gravesite.

Her mother hadn’t taken her father’s death well and Melinda appreciated how difficult this was for her, but she hadn’t been able to think of anywhere else for them to meet on such short notice.

By unspoken consent, the pair of them returned to the path, their shoes wet with dew and rain from the grass, and wondered the graveyard until they found a bench that wasn’t as damp as the others had been. Sitting on the cold bench and thinking warily that it felt more like November than September, Melinda waited for her mother to speak first.

A good twenty minutes passed in silence before Lian May spoke. “Are we being watched?”

“I came alone.”

“That was foolish.”

“I have people waiting in the café in the village centre.”

“Shield?”

“No.”

Lian turned to her. “Why not Shield?”

“Shield doesn’t know. I haven’t told them.”

“Why not?” her mother asked again, gazing at her intently.

Melinda shrugged, not willing to go into it. Her mother just kept watching her until Melinda squirmed and gave in. “Phil and I have had a disagreement … or three.”

“And that’s a reason to abandon your agency is it? You stuck by them when they fell but you and Phillip have fallen once again out so you run off to sulk alone and now that Hydra is out for your blood he is unaware that you are in need of aid? I thought you had more sense than this! Petulant child!”

“I’ve got three of the Avengers waiting in town. Three Avengers are more than equal to the resources of Shield.”

“Last time we spoke you told me that you’d take any _one_ of your team oven all the Avengers any day of the week.”

Melinda worked her jaw. True. And that still stood. But … oh maybe she _was_ being stubborn.

“What happened between you and Phillip to make you run away and hide … _again_?”

Melinda glared at her mother. “Was that ‘again’ necessary?”

“Yes. You were terrible after he was hurt during that New York incident. Distraught when he’d learned you had lied to him on Fury’s orders. What have you done now to push him away this time I wonder?”

“ _I_ didn’t do anything!” Melinda snapped, jumping to her feet. “He’s the one lying to _me_! Lying about meeting up with Drew behind my back and lying about what he’s been doing for Shield … I thought we had started again: that we had gotten beyond the secrets. I thought …” she cut herself off. _I thought things were finally back to normal._

Lian May finally looked away from her daughter. “You need to talk to him.”

Melinda snorted. “Peggy pretty much said the same thing.” She began pacing in front of the bench while her mother sat and watched her.

“Well good. You’ve always listened to her. Sensible woman, that Carter.”

She couldn’t dispute with her mother about that.

“Now why is Hydra in my house?”

“Shield assigned us that house,” Melinda corrected absently, “So technically –”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“– technically that’s probably how and why they found it.”

“That’s not what I asked.” Lian repeated.

Melinda sighed. “Ward. He blames me for the death of someone he cared about and … there’s this woman – I’ve told you about Skye?” her mother nodded once. “Skye’s mother is – not sound of mind is the kindest way I have to phrase it. She blames me for Skye turning against her when she did that all by herself.”

“You have a talent for pissing the wrong people off.”

“No that’s Ari,” Melinda corrected.

Her mother snorted. “Don’t bring that girl up. I was almost having a pleasant time.”

Really? _Really?_ Melinda wondered if she’d ever stop yearning for her mother’s approval. Probably not. It was one of those things about parents she supposed … ah well, bes get this over with.

“I’ve been looking for her.”

“Can’t imagine why.”

“Because of that Monolith.”

“What Monolith? That one you claim was how you and that Ari –”

“Yes.” Melinda cut her mother off before she could finish: she’d only wind up insulting about a dozen other people Melinda respected and liked. “It’s absorbed an agent of mine – well several agents it turns out over the years but that’s not why I’m looking for her – Ari is the only one who knows _why_ and how we can get them out again.”

Lian closed her eyes and sighed through her nose. “She has an agenda all of her own: you know that. So why would you think she even cared? It might even be a part of this great plan of hers. Have you thought of that?”

“Ari knows what she’s doing.” Melinda defended, coming to a halt in front of her mother.

“I’m sure she does. But no one else does do they? Can you tell me what she wants? What she’s after? Because it sure as day isn’t going to be anything pleasant is it?”

That was out of line. Even for her mother. Ari had nothing but the best interests of the universe at heart, it was about the only thing Melinda was sure of when it came to her friend. Ari was perhaps the only person in the universe who was aware of everything and therefore who could act upon that knowledge.

“You’ve never liked her!” she accused.

“No. And I fail to see why you continue to associate with her either.”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Melinda muttered. “But now we’ve re-established that you don’t like Ari can we get back to the matter at hand?”

Melinda watched her mother as she sighed again and glance around the cemetery. “Fine. I take it you have a plan for getting my house back? I don’t much want it in the hands of Hydra any longer than necessary.”

“Nat and Clint were talking something through when I left them.”

“Romanoff and Barton? You brought the _least_ reliable agents with you? Dear god what is wrong with your decisions child?”

The urge to turn around and yell that she was not a child almost overwhelmed her. But she resisted because it would only prove her mother’s point. Instead she took a breath and let it go. “Captain Rogers is with them.”

“Hm. A frozen vegetable from the War.”

Seriously? Nothing impressed her mother.

“Well what would you prefer?”

“A thought through strategy from Shield’s tacticians.”

Melinda shook her head, “You just want me to re-establish my connection to Shield because you’re afraid I’ll go free-lance or something.”

“Yes. You would not cope without something to fight for. Shield, as much as I am wary of them, always gave you that better than any other agency in the world, which I could not fault them for. So I think you should call up Phillip and tell him you need help.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll let him know that Nat and Clint and Steve are helping me to get my house back and –”

Her mother glared at her.

Melinda gave up. Shaking her head, she sighed heavily and slumped back down on the bench beside Lian May. “Okay. I’ll ask him for help.”

Digging out her phone, Melinda was surprised when her mother reached out and covered her hand with hers.

“You and Phillip don’t manage when you’re not getting along. He takes on too much and lets the weight of the world rest on his shoulders and you run away from your problems rather than turning and dealing with them. And the only way you are going to begin fix things is if one of you asks the other for help … which you used to always do with the smallest of things. You are far stronger together than you could ever be apart.” 

Melinda nodded, sighing again. Her mother was right. When she and Phil were in complete understanding with each other and were on the same wave length they could take on the world … when they weren’t, the world got to them. And it surprised her somewhat that her mother had realised this and had then turned round to tell Melinda. She always got the impression that her mother disproved of her friendship with Phil.

But then, thinking about it now, she hadn’t disproved of their friendship before … and it wasn’t that she disproved, it was she didn’t think Melinda should have kept _it_ from him. Her argument, at the time and to this day, was it would’ve made things ten hundred thousand times harder if Phil had known. Not that it was ever a subject that ever came up. Nearly thirty years on and it still hurt like hell: it would always hurt like hell … even if it had been necessary.

“What are you dwelling on now?” her mother asked.

“Do you think she’s happy?”

The question surprised Lian, and when she didn’t immediately reply, Melinda glanced at her and waited. Her mother seemed to be trying to get her head round the subject of the question. After all, they had never once spoken about it since it had happened.

“I think she is very happy … and _safe_. Which was the primary goal. For her to be safe.”

“I know … I look at Skye and … and I can’t help but think she is just the kind of person I’d want _her_ to be. Strong and independent and capable of looking after herself and …” she shook her head. “I don’t even know why I’m so attached to her.”

“Because coincidence has it that she has the same name you gave to _her_. Or similar at the very least. I told you - warned you - that giving her a name would make it harder to let her go.”

“Perhaps it’s that,” Melinda agreed. “I can’t seem to think of Skye as Daisy – that’s the name her parents gave her: Daisy Johnson. She’s started to use it all the time rather than Skye and …” Melinda let out a huff of air which misted in the frigid weather.

“You should tell Phillip.”

Shaking her head, Melinda got to her feet once again, placing her phone on the bench rather than back in her pocket. “No. He wouldn’t ever understand why I never told him in the first place.”

Melinda stood and glanced out across the cemetery. She and her mother didn’t say anything more for about ten minutes, then Lian stirred and got to her feet. “It’s chilly for September don’t you think? Anyway, I imagine your Avenger back up is waiting impatiently for us. Any longer and they’ll come looking.”

Turning, Melinda nodded, intent on picking up her phone from the bench.

A glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye made her stiffen as the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Before she could do anything she felt something sharp launch into the side of her shoulder. Beside her, her mother crumpled to the floor.

Melinda had enough time to pluck the dark from her jacket – the material had stopped the needle point from piercing her skin – before someone in black stepped out of the bushes to face her. Tossing the dark to the ground, Melinda prepared herself for a fight. It was only when the second dark pierced the skin of her neck that Melinda realised the figure in black was a distraction: that he’d stepped into view from the opposite direction to where the darts had been fired from …

Crumpling to the ground beside her mother, Melinda could’ve kicked herself …

Such a rookie mistake …

Her phone was still on the bench …

The screen lit up as the device began to vibrate …

 _Skye_ …

Melinda was struggling to keep her eyes open …

A pair of boots in her vision …

Her phone was still vibrating …

This morning Melinda had woken to a message from Skye. Expecting something along the lines of ‘where are you?’ or ‘how’s it going?’ or something else about Melinda’s search for the person who could potentially free Simmons, she had been pleasantly surprised at what the message had contained. A ‘selfie’ of Skye posing with a drastically new haircut – short enough to not get in the way, long enough to still be long and styled, the length down to her chin near enough – and the question in a green bubble underneath saying: _do you like?_ Melinda had responded with that little thumbs up thing on the keyboard. She’d assigned the image as Skye’s contact image.

Skye’s face was looking at her from the flashing screen of her vibrating phone …

Melinda’s eyes closed as the phone stopped.

~

She woke up in darkness. In the back of what she gauged was a fast-moving truck on some highway. Her mother was leaning against a box across the small space, watching her through the darkness with a hard look in her eyes. “If you’d have swallowed your pride and told Shield rather than rely on those pesky Avengers this would not have happened!”

Melinda said nothing. Her head was spinning too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. so first things first: i have gone back and edited and chanced stuff in the previous chapters - nothing drastic - just little things about how long it's been since anyone's seen Ari.
> 
> Secondly: What did you think? Let me know please :) I appreciate all comments and everything :)
> 
> Thirdly: Hope you enjoyed it :)


	10. Trapped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May Breaks A Leg & Mama May Kicks Ass ...

She had no idea how long they’d been in the back of the truck, hidden among the boxes and crates of what Melinda suspected were supplies for Hydra. Her wrists were raw from the hour she’d spent trying to wriggle free and failed. The cuffs were too tight and she wasn’t in the mood to break her skin trying to get free when it wasn’t likely to happen. Her mother had just glared at her in the dimness the entire time, muttering under her breath in Chinese about how stupid Melinda had been and that clearly Hydra had set a trap which they’d walked right into.

Melinda really wasn’t in the mood.

She let her head fall back against the rough crate she’d leant against and allowed her mind to drift and wonder freely. She should’ve called Phil when she’d had the chance … and now Skye was probably in a huff because it had been however long and she’d not called her back … maybe Nat would find her phone and pick up? Maybe between the Inhuman and the Assassin they’d come up with a plan to save her ass from whatever fate Ward had in store for her … and no doubt they’d never let it rest that they had had to come to her rescue …

Perhaps the only one who’d let it go was the one person she was currently on ‘not speaking’ terms with. And though to an outsider it didn’t seem that way, there were times when Phil Coulson was more stubborn than she ever could be. But he was her rock and she was his. Her mother was right … which annoyed Melinda somewhat: her mother was insufferable when she was right.

Unbidden, perhaps the last moment she and Phil had shared together that hadn’t been fraught with lies and deceit and collapsing agencies and Hydra and insanity and alien drugs and the pair of them both _knowing_ those things were between them came to the forefront of her mind. It had been such a long while now that it almost seemed like a lifetime ago.

* * *

_Smirking, Melinda felt a sense of accomplishment as the ringing laughter of her team rang in her ears over the coms. Fitz was now trying establish some ground rules about the bunks being off-limits. But really? He’d bought it on himself with all that pranking he’d been trying – trying being the operative word here – to do to Skye. Simmons was lucky Melinda had decided against adding some food-dye to the girl’s shampoo …_

_Turning the coms in her ear off, proud of her achievement and her little foray into the past, she resumed her gaze of the bright, star studded sky around her. It had been a hell of a day, least surprising of which was Skye sitting in the seat beside her for a good two hours without saying a word beyond the ‘can I sit?’ and without fiddling on her phone or laptop or some other device. She’d been impressed, and almost sad when the girl had gotten up and left, but then it was her own fault for not putting the autopilot on and joining them for dinner when the girl had offered._

_The night began to wear on and deepen, the starts twinkling brightly, reminding Melinda of that part of her life before Shield when things were … different. Shaking herself slightly with a firm 'that was then', Melinda took a deep calming breath in order to ground herself in the assurance that that part of her life was over. The door to the cockpit opened, closed, and Phil sat himself down in the chair beside her: he had a plate with a couple of sandwiches and an orange the size of his fist. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone and his tie loose round his neck._

_“You know that everyone knows it was you right?”_

_Melinda feigned innocence._

_“Don’t give me that.” Phil chuckled. “I know you were listening! You never pulled a prank without being there to witness it during our Academy days so I’m assuming you took steps to make sure you knew when it had occurred and the reaction it got this time round.”_

_It was nice to know he still knew her so well._

_“Well no one is going to confront you: they’re all still too afraid of you for that.”_

_Melinda looked at him, wondering what he wanted._

_Phil sighed and looked at the plate he’d bought her. “I don’t know,” he shrugged answering her unspoken query. “I just … it’s been a hell of a day huh?”_

_She nodded and then sighed in tandem to him. Yes. It had been one crazy day._

_“I just …” Phil had a lot on his mind it seemed, and Melinda had learned long ago that it was best to just let him figure it out uninterrupted. “The world is getting crazier and crazier and …”_

_“Makes what Ari used to say seem more real?”_

_Phil groaned. “Don’t. Every day since New York I’ve had her in my head going ‘told you so, told you so’!”_

_Melinda chuckled, “Probably because Fury won’t listen to his Ari-voice in his head.”_

_“Hmmm,” Phil agreed, placing the plate on top of the console and stretching tiredly. He’d probably spent the time between finishing the game with Simmons, Ward and Skye and making her dinner, hunched over his desk writing up reports of the day’s events. She didn’t envy him._ _He probably told the Ari-voice to shut the fuck up so she came over and started dancing round my head instead.”_

_“She knows you’re more reasonable … and that you actually care about that kind of thing.”_

_“Is this weird? Talking about our friend as though she were a voice in our head?”_

_“Your head maybe – she’s certainly not in mine,” Melinda quipped._

_Phil smiled. “You hungry?”_

_She shrugged but gave no indication she was going to switch on autopilot. Mainly because she hated peeling oranges and knew Phil had a particular expertise at doing so. She failed to completely hide her smirk when he pulled out a pen knife and picked up the orange and then proceeded to sit back and peel it for her._

_Somehow she knew he knew._

_“You’re not the only one kicking yourself about Ari’s warnings and New York,” she assured him. “I talked to Peggy not long after it happened, I …” she trailed off and then started again. “She said Ari had offered once to take the Tesseract Out There and hide it someplace safe. She was kicking herself because Ari virtually predicted what happened.”_

_Phil nodded. “I don’t feel so bad now … and I guess Fury probably kicked himself in private when no one could see him.”_

_“The Director can’t be seen to regret his actions,” Melinda agreed._

_They fell back into silence. Once Phil finished peeling the orange, he and Melinda shared it as they sat in the cockpit of the Bus watching the stars blink and twinkle and seem only an arm’s reach beyond them. “Everything seems to have gotten so much crazier since New York,” Phil continued after a while as the horizon to their left was beginning to pale._

_“You’re telling me.” Melinda was thinking back to their latest encounter with the … abnormal … other worlds and – well. It certainly wasn’t normal for their tiny little planet to have so many encounters with the rest of the universe so suddenly and unexpectedly. Again, remembering something else Ari had said, and remembering her old pre-Shield life, Melinda reflected wryly that it was somewhat inevitable. The universe – as Ari always said – was a big place full of even bigger personalities._

_“You ever feel,” Phil’s words brought her back to reality. “You ever feel like …”_

_“Like what?” She turned and looked at him. In the pre-dawn glow he looked tired and worn out and much older than he truly was. She remembered the day they had met – so long ago now – in the New York HQ (which had been reduced to a pile of rubble in the years since) … he had been so young and so full of hope and life and eager for excitement. His face fresh and his body unmarked and his eyes not full of the shadow of a thousand bad endings and as many bad mistakes and bad calls and tough calls and all the dirty horrible shady bits of the job that no one had ever told them about until after they’d been given a badge and given their lives away to Shield._

_Phil chose his words with care. “We’re just ordinary people … in an extraordinary world. And the world no longer has a place for ordinary people. We’ve become redundant.”_

_“You and I were never ordinary,” Melinda told him firmly. “And the world will always need us Phil … so don’t give up on it just yet.”_

_Phil looked across at her. A rare smile – not his usual smirk that he used when he wanted someone to know he’d just played them – a proper smile the likes of which she hadn’t seen since … well, since before Bahrain she supposed._

_“No,” he agreed softly. “_ We _were never ordinary.”_

* * *

Melinda must’ve dozed off because she suddenly and slowly became aware that they had stopped moving. She sat up best she could with her arms cuffed behind her back and peered across to her mother; a small camping light had been placed between them. Someone had been in to check they were alive no doubt. Her mother threw her a glare and sighed heavily.

“I asked to be released but they told me that they weren’t taking any chances with The Cavalry’s mother.” Melinda closed her eyes at that name. “But they did agree to give us some light.”

“And what use is a little light?” Melinda muttered.

Her mother glared at her again, as though she were a child who was missing the obvious in a very simple test.

“We can observe our surroundings. See who is coming. Get a good logistics of where we are and what the situation is … really? Did you learn _nothing_ at that Academy?”

Melinda was certain that those darts had some kind of icer toxin in them which probably explained why her head was killing her almost as bad as that time Skye had blasted her back with her quaking powers. Almost. She suspected it was more her pride and her feelings that were hurt with the whole Skye knocking her out thing.

“Did you get a good look at who it was who came in?” Melinda asked. Her mother stared at her for a few moments before listing what she had seen of the man. Melinda stopped listening: she didn’t recognise anything from the description her mother was giving her so it was unlikely she would know who he was.

Trying again, because she was frustrated and annoyed and pissed that she’d been beaten so damn easily, Melinda attempted to wriggle free from the cuffs. Her mother watched her in silence, wisely not saying a word as Melinda struggled and struggled, getting more and more frustrated and cursing loudly, not giving a shit if they were heard. The skin on her wrists was still red and raw and began to burn from the efforts she was going to try and break the unyielding bonds.

Someone banged on the side of the truck, making Melinda jump. “Keep yer trap shut!” came the yell through the walls. Melinda glared at the offending spot where the noise had come from. Her chest was heaving and her usual stoic, calm, collected persona was somewhat non-existent just then. Probably because she had just walked her mother into a Hydra trap.

But … if she carried on cursing loudly and attempting to escape – which was no doubt what they were assuming she was doing – then they’d come in and … it was a long shot. They were bound with hands behind their backs and at a serious disadvantage. She glanced across the room at her mother, wondering what she would say. Her mother narrowed her eyes for a moment, seemingly reading her mind. Was that something all mothers could do? Read their child’s mind like a book? Melinda didn’t know – she would never know.

“It’s likely to fail,” her mother pointed out in mandarin. And she spoke in mandarin because she knew it would infuriate their captors.

“At this point,” Melinda replied in kind, “we haven’t a lot of options.” Her mother nodded after a moment. Melinda resumed her attempts at breaking free from the cuffs – her curses and shouts weren’t exactly improvised as involuntary: she’d split the skin on her wrists and it _hurt_. For their hastily made plan to work they needed noise and Melinda was more than happy to voice her pain in the form of some choice curses that would in any other situation earn a smack from her mother despite her age.

Someone banged on the side of the truck again but Melinda ignored it. Her mother began talking very loudly in mandarin – some drabble about something – adding to the commotion. Melinda stopped attempting to free her wrists; they were bloody and sticky and raw and stinging and felt like they were burning with liquid fire. She didn’t want to permeantly damage the ligaments and nerves or sever a vital vein.

Shifting forwards while her mother continued talking rapidly in Chinese, Melinda kicked at a stack of boxes in front of her, attempting to dislodge them. It took some effort and left her panting, but the resounding crash of stolen military weapons was enough to have shouts outside the truck a head towards the doors at the back. Melinda dragged herself back, wincing because several of the heavy machine guns had landed on her leg and thigh.

Her mother – luckily – had avoided any collateral damage. She watched Melinda wincing as she shifted herself back to her original position while the sounds of the doors at the end of the truck being unlocked filled the space. “Are you hurt?”

Melinda was momentarily thrown by the question – her mother _never_ showed her much concern, or seemed to. She found her voice. “Nothing broken.”

Her mother nodded. “Get ready. It may not work. Be prepared for that!”

“I am!” Melinda shot back in a hiss as the door were wrenched open and the bright flood lights were directed inside, blinding both Melinda and her mother while five or six Hydra agents clambered into the back of the truck. Four of them went to Melinda, picking her up and carrying her bodily to the exit while the other two pulled her mother up and walked her forwards. Melinda found it amusing that they had decided she was the bigger threat: had these assholes met her mother?

From the end of the truck, Melinda was tossed heavily out of the open door and onto the rough tarmac. She groaned, winded, as her mother was passed out of the truck rather than tossed. She decided not to comment. Stirring, she struggled to her knees aware that she was being watched intently by the men now surrounding her.

“What’s going on here?”

Melinda’s gut clenched. Ward. Her fists clenched involuntarily behind her back and her shoulders hunched, tense.

“May? Are you causing trouble again?”

She didn’t respond, staring at the ground beneath her as she heard Ward approaching, the loose stones crunching under his feet.

“May … c’mon now. I asked you a question.”

“Go to hell,” she muttered under her breath along with a long string of curses in her mother's dialect.

Ward seized a fistful of her hair and yanked her head back, forcing her to look at him. Unbalanced, all she could do was hang there limply and wait for him to let go. He hadn’t changed much since the last time they’d crossed paths. Gone was his pretty-boy, clean-cut, not-a-hair-out-of-place appearance that he’d had whilst on the Bus. He looked older and harder and crueller with his stubble and un-kempt appearance. She had the urge to rip his face right off and claw out his eyes with her bare hands.

“Now. Are you causing trouble May?” he asked. Then laughed. “What am I saying? Of course you are. Bet you thought it was worth the chance to escape? But you didn’t know I was here did you … would you have even bothered if you knew?”

No. Because she’d have spent that time plotting and planning for everything. Like Ward had planned and accommodated for this ill-attempted escape. She glanced at her mother, who was watching Ward with a hard look that Melinda realised was protection: she had never known her mother to possess such instincts …

“Ah … yes. How rude of me.” Ward glanced at her mother too, a smirk in place. “I haven’t introduced myself,” he let Melinda go and she collapsed in a heap on the floor, smothering her wince as her tender body protested the brutal treatment. One of Ward’s men placed a heavy boot on her thigh and leant heavily upon it; he was twice the size of Mack, rippling with so much muscle and mass and weight that Melinda could feel the bone protesting, shrieking. She gasped but otherwise bit her tongue.

Ward stood in front of her mother. Lian looked up at him with the same unimpressed look that Melinda often used (she’d borrowed it from her mother after all). At least, Melinda thought, her mother wasn’t on her knees or sprawled across the ground in varying degrees of agony. Already she was trying to prepare herself for the inevitable _snap_ as Mr Big-And-Huge placed just a little more weight on her already bruised thigh.

Somehow she doubted it would help.

 _Phil_ , she thought quietly, _this is one of those times when I need you to somehow magically know that I need you. I promise if you come swooping in now to save the day, I’ll let you bore me senseless with all that Captain America trivia while Simmons patches me up …_ But then she remembered Simmons was trapped inside the Kree Monolith and that she was meant to be finding Ari so that Ari could get her out … _Okay … I may be a little desperate here,_ she thought as Ward and her mother spoke quietly, _but – and I don’t believe I’m doing this – Ari … you have a habit of showing up when you’re needed … well you’re needed … I’ll let you brag all you like ... just - help me ..._

Dimly she was aware that her voice of conscience – Peggy’s voice – was yelling at her to get a grip and to focus and to stop wasting time on prayers that no one would hear: all wasn’t lost yet …

It certainly felt that way to Melinda May. She was lost and alone and Phil wouldn’t even know that Ward had killed her until it was too late … what would Ward do with her body? Leave it somewhere Phil would find it? Or just dump it somewhere for someone to find and then burry without anyone she cared about ever knowing? And what would Phil do when he found out? Would he cry and weep like she had done when he had died? Would Skye? Skye would, the girl wore her heart on her sleeve just like Phil … though she was getting better at keeping it hidden.

Peggy’s voice snapped at her again to pay attention and stop feeling sorry for herself.

She focused on her mother and Ward in time to see her mother’s knee colliding with Ward’s sensitive area. He doubled over and her mother had dispatched the two guards restraining her before he had managed to straighten up. Her mother wasted no time in jabbing Ward in the throat in the same manner Melinda had once done months ago now. For a moment it seemed like her mother would prevail and that they would escape.

And then Ward caught Mr Big-And-Huge’s eye.

Honestly, she must’ve passed out for a moment.

The pain was blinding.

Like her leg was on fire with ice and acid and everything painful.

Someone gave out a short sharp scream of agony.

She’d broken bones before. Just not ones so huge and solid. And so deliberately, unnecessarily. This was torture.

Mr Big-And-Huge hadn’t just increased the pressure: he’d lifted his foot off Melinda’s thigh, giving her a moment’s reprieve, then stamped down with all his force onto her leg.

Which was when she had passed out.

Throbbing and burning and feeling like her leg was just a pile of mush, Melinda gasped and struggled and groaned and probably, truthfully, screamed through the first few minutes of consciousness. Huddled awkwardly into a ball. Oblivious to what was happening around her. She didn’t even notice the gunshot. Or the crumple as someone collapsed in a heap on the ground beside her.

It was Jiaying who reasserted control over the situation. Through tearstained eyes Melinda saw Skye’s mother approaching her own and place a hand either side of her head. Skye had told her what it had felt like to have Jiaying use her powers on her … but she didn’t kill her mother. Only weakened her enough so that she could be successfully restrained. Not really hearing what was being said, Melinda watched the two mothers exchanging harsh words and threats and hostile animosity. A hatred so strong that it unnerved Melinda.

Peggy’s voice was telling her to breathe through the pain and listen to what was going on. Trying to focus, to centre herself, every time she thought she had a lid on it, her leg would throb and burn and pulse and it would start a fresh. She missed near enough all of the conversation between her mother and Jiaying.

It was only as Jiaying and Ward got into the black SUV and slammed doors that something registered inside Melinda’s pain-riddled mind. She turned to her mother, who was watching the SUV speed away, and gasped breathlessly, “You … know … her!”

Her mother looked taken aback, a shadow crossed her face. Guilt.

Struggling to get the words out, chest heaving, having to stop every five seconds from the pain, Melinda managed to get out, “How … why … I don’t … I don’t … understand …?”

Hydra loaded her mother back into the truck first, taking their time doing so. Probably making sure she was secured efficiently before they left. There was only one guard left watching Melinda, but it wasn’t as though she could move, let alone fight. She could barely make it through a sentence without doubling over in sheer agony.

She nearly passed out again when they moved her.

Hands still cuffed awkwardly behind her back, they lifted her limply up into the bed of the truck and dumped her on the floor between two rows of boxes and then departed. Jumping back out of the truck and slamming heavy doors closed with a clang. It was dark inside the truck now. They’d forgone their light privilege in the ill-attempted escape … her mother was probably restrained and bound to some permeant and unmoving object at the front of the truck and Melinda could barely move herself. Her restraint not cuffs and chains and heavy padlocks, but sheer unmasked, undulled, pain.

Trembling she lay still where she’d been abandoned and bit her lip. She wouldn’t cry even if there was only her mother to hear her. Pain dulled over time. Lessened. Got softer. Easier to deal with. To manage. It became familiar. You grew accustomed to it the more it was there. Thing was as the truck hit a particularly harsh glitch in the road about ten minutes into their resumed journey, it caused her shattered leg to flare up intensely – and she swiftly passed out again.

Her last thought before she blacked out was of Phil. His blue eyes and his half-smile and his easy ‘what? Me? Never!’ manner. Her best friend …

If she ever got the chance, Melinda resolved, she was going to make things right with Phil. She was going to tell him everything she had never said. Everything Peggy and her mother told her she should never have kept from him. She would tell him about her years before Shield and how she had met Ari. She’d tell him what it had been like when Nat had ushered Tony Stark into her tiny cubical at Hill’s Field Office to tell her that Phil was dead. If she ever got the chance to, she would tell him about the child she’d had after that one night they’d had together after their first ever mission as proper Shield agents. If she had the chance she would tell him about the child. The child – _their_ child – that her mother and Peggy Carter had made her give away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. So.
> 
> What did you think my beauties?
> 
> Got a little Coulson/May flashy back there huh? And some Mama May.
> 
> Please let me know what you thought. I do really apprechiate all your comments. :)


	11. Los Angeles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skye Encounters The Rising Tide ...

Coulson had given her free rein. Although that might’ve been because she hadn’t exactly given him much choice in the matter. The unspoken threat that she’d wind up doing structural damage to either the base or Agent Weaver might’ve helped the Director make up his mind.

Skye. _Daisy_. Skye. _Daisy_. Skye. _Daisy_. Skye. _Daisy_. Skye. _Daisy_. Skye. _Daisy_. Skye. _Daisy_. Daisy. Daisy. Daisy. Skye. _Skye_. Skye. Daisy. Skye. Daisy. Skye. Daisy. Daisy. Daisy. Daisy. _Daisy_. Skye. Skye. Skye. Skye. Daisy. Skye. Daisy. Skye. Daisy. Skye. Daisy. Skye. Daisy. Skye. Daisy. Skye. Daisy. _Daisy_.

Before she’d left, Skye had asked Bobbi to cut her hair for her. Probably glad to get out of the lab, Bobbi had agreed and they’d discussed why Skye felt the need for the drastic change in length, as well as all that had changed since Skye had first hacked her way into Shield. Watching her hair being chopped off in the mirror, she had thought idly that her sudden and abrupt new look – which made her look older and more mature and much more sensible and practical – was probably something to do with her finally letting go of her childhood and her innocence and all that. Besides, she smirked to herself while admiring Bobbi’s handiwork after her shower, it made her look real badass. So naturally she took a selfie and sent it to May for approval then finished getting dressed with a grin plastered on her face when she received the absent agent’s approval.

Bobbi had seen her off with a quiet and hopeful, “See you soon Daisy J.”

Looking at the older, taller woman, she’d nodded. “Yeah … s’pose I might as well be now huh? Spent all this time searching for who I was – be stupid not to use my name now that I’ve found it.”

“I’ll let the others know,” Bobbi had smiled. “Let them get used to the idea while you’re away.”

As she’d left the Playground, Skye – _Daisy_ – had pulled out her phone with the intention of asking May how she was doing in her search for the someone who would potentially have the knowledge to free Simmons. She wanted to know if she should search for Ari alone or if May felt she was close, join her and hope they were after the same person. Of course May had never picked up and left Skye – Daisy – feeling peeved considering that May had responded to her text earlier.

Sitting in the parking lot of some fast food restaurant, the name of which escaped her, and devouring the unhealthy junk-food she had once upon a time lived upon, Skye – _Daisy_ – had decided that May was probably in the middle of something and that she would get back to her when she could. An hour passed, and then another – Daisy having made another trip inside the joint to get another burger and fries and to use the bathroom – and by the time the third hour ticked by her patience had been at an all-time low.

Jarring the engine of the borrowed car into life (okay, so maybe she had hotwired it – using the skills May had taught her – from the police impound she’d spotted), Skye – _Daisy! –_ had reversed out of her parking spot as the parking warden was about to come over and give her a ticket and trundled back onto the main road through the modest town a few miles from base.

The last time she had seen Ari had been in Dublin three years ago and it wasn’t as though she’d still be there now – she could be anywhere. Anywhere at all. First things first, Skye – _Daisy_ – realised that her best bet would be to attempt to trace the location from which Ari had answered her phone call the other day and then work from there. Daisy – hey that way getting easier and easier – tried calling May once more but the call went directly to voicemail and then weirdly just cut off mid-ring when she called back immediately after hanging up on the voicemail service. Giving up entirely, Daisy decided not to bother calling again seeing as May was clearly far too busy to contact her …

Daisy found an internet café not long after leaving the fast-food joint and spent a goodly amount of time hacking into relevant satellites and databanks and servers and networks (yes, including Shield) in order to try and generate a rough location of Ari’s whereabouts three days ago. She’d had to make a hasty exit as the local law enforcement entered the small café and started asking people who that car parked outside belonged to – the one stolen from the impound.

That had been yesterday morning.

She was currently sitting by the window on a commercial flight to LA surrounded by tourists and families and what appeared to be a school trip for middle-school kids. Perfect. Negotiations between Talbot and Coulson yesterday evening had ended in the agreement of removing twenty names associated with Shield off the terrorist list. Which had meant Daisy hadn’t had any issue in her ID Fitz had constructed passing through control.

Shifting uncomfortably in the too-small space, Daisy looked out the window and sighed heavily wishing she were on the Bus with May on stick – or that she had taken May up on the offer to learn how to fly. She could’ve nabbed one of the Quin-jets for her journey.

It was a long shot – knowing her friend like she did, Ari was highly unlikely to still be in LA; she had a habit of never staying anywhere for more than a few days. Daisy remembered how restless she got and how, whenever she asked Ari to stick around for a while, Ari would often disappear for a few days to go get herself into trouble and ‘let off steam’ as it was eloquently put by her minder. Though Daisy always got the impression the ‘minder’ was minding Ari more than she was minding her …

The habits of a lifetime, well of a strict and regimented training regime overseen by one Melinda May, meant Daisy was unable to do more than doze as the plane glided across the sky. The racket from the school kids didn’t help either and two seat down from her was a guy who wouldn’t leave his bag alone … shaking herself because she was getting suspicious and paranoid, Daisy went through the breathing techniques May had taught her at the very beginning of their training in order to try and calm herself down and relax. The last thing anyone needed was a tense vibrating Inhuman, capable of rendering anything and anyone to rubble, on an aeroplane several thousand feet above inhabited soil.

Several jittery hours later Daisy made it through the airport security in LA and breathed a sigh of relief as she let the noise of the city wash over her. Funny. She hadn’t been back here really since Shield had picked her up from her van in that alley … idly she wondered what had happened to her van. It had been a sixteenth birthday and a ‘good luck in the world’ present from her minder. Hydra had probably destroyed it. Or it was impounded when Shield fell. Maybe it had been sold … perhaps it was now home to someone else who hadn’t anything else or anywhere else to go.

Hailing a taxi, Daisy got a lift into the heart of the city where she hoped she could find a low-end motel or something where she could lay low and use as a base to try and locate Ari from. Knowing her luck … it could go either way. Either she would find Ari or she wouldn’t.

She had a feeling though, as she sat in the back of the cab stuck in traffic, that luck was going to be on her side – a feeling that the universe had decided on a rare moment of alinement and was going to allow coincidence to have Daisy in the right place at the right time to find her wayward bestie.

She hoped.

Perhaps she was just hungry.

That was probably it.

Daisy found a cheap motel where she could crash for a few days. It reminded her strongly of the place they’d hidden out after Shield first fell, when they were waiting to be found and trying to find that last little bit to summon up the will to take on Ward and Garret and get their Bus back. Unassuming, with the owners not interested in asking too many questions. Questionable locks on the doors and a decent sized swimming pool in the middle of a courtyard where four building blocks of concrete looked in on and watched the happenings. The whole place looked as though it could do with a sprucing up and had the feel of ‘that’ll do for now’ to it.

Suited Daisy just fine.

From her duffle she pulled out the carrier bags from the local hardware store she’d spotted from the cab she’d grabbed at the airport. She had ordered the cab to pull over, paid the guy and hopped out as a family of five hurried over to grab the cab before it disappeared back into the traffic. Daisy had headed into the store and came out ten minutes later with two carrier bags full of wares and a sense of self-sufficiency.

She had gotten a power drill, a few packs of screws and several heavy-duty deadbolts as well as a few other items. It wasn’t exactly something May had taught her, but common sense – and having lived in a van for part of her life, not to mention children’s homes and other shady establishments – and experience had given Daisy foresight enough to purchase the objects so that she could sleep a little better at night. One too many times had she been asleep trusting the lock only to find herself waking when it failed and someone walking in during the dead of night.

Nothing had happened. But still. Next time it happened she doubted they'd be put off by screams.

Plugging her phone into the portable speakers and turning the music up to full volume, Daisy opened the box the power drill came in and managed to get it to work – there was, thank god, some juice inside the battery-thing already – first time. Humming along to some 80s classics, Daisy fitted two of the deadbolts to the inside of the door; one near the top and another near the bottom. She’d like to see anyone try get that door open in the middle of the night even if they had a key. Satisfied, Daisy slid the bolts home and packed up the drill and then took a shower.

Hungry, she made sure the curtains were shut and her things all packed up neatly in the duffle before grabbing the satchel with her tablet and an icer, Daisy glimpsed into the dingy mirror to check she was presentable before pulling back the bolts and turning the key. Outside of her room she glanced round to make sure no one was looking as she vibrated the bolts back in place: her left palm placed flat on the rough door as she rattled the two bolts across the edge of the door and into the catch fixed firmly in place on the frame.

Then she turned the key as anyone would do when leaving the room and pocketed it before making her way out of the complex and towards some kind of food and a chance to sit and think about where she was going to begin looking for Ari. She was wondering down the street, shops lining the sides and a busy road full of traffic in the middle, tourists and locals swarming across the pavements, when someone called out to her; a voice that was vaguely familiar.

“Skye! Hey Skye!”

Turning and searching through the crowd with a frown on her face for the source, Daisy did a full 360 turn to find herself face to face with someone from her past. Black hair dyed bright neon blue and a pair of tattered sneakers and a checked shirt four sizes too big belted round the middle to make a short dress – Daisy was stumped for the name.

“It is you! I thought it was! You look so different with that hair cut – and wow have you been working out? Where’ve you been at? It’s been _ages_ since we saw you last! Like you just dropped off the face of the earth! Where have you been? What you been doing!”

Taking half a step back, Daisy shrugged. “Yah know … life.”

Her Rising Tide days were a thing of the past, and she had never expected to run across any of her former associates, especially after what happened with Miles. She had thought he’d ratted her out to them all as turning to the Dark Side … clearly not. Hmm … interesting. Maybe that crap about selling information to pay for a life together had been true after all?

“Life? That’s no answer!”

“Look … yeah – no, I’ve just …” Daisy didn’t know what to say. And for the life of her she couldn’t remember the girl’s name either. Eager to end the conversation as swiftly as she possibly could, Daisy came up with the first thing that popped into her head. The truth. Ish.

“I found my parents.”

“Oh my god! That is fantastic news! I’m really happy for you! Like that was the reason you were hacking wasn’t it? To find them! Yeah makes sense now why you went dark! Oh brilliant!” Daisy was hugged rather tightly round the middle by her former friend (she wasn’t even too sure they had been actual friends back in the day) and then before she knew quite what was happening, the neon-blue haired hacker was pulling her down the street at breakneck speed.

“Listen you’ve got to come see everyone. Just to say hi! They’ll all be miserable if I say I’ve seen you but you never said hi to them all!”

Not quite sure how she was going to get out of this one, Daisy allowed herself to get pulled along wondering if she had ever been so young and excitable and youthful and on concluding that she had, she felt suddenly sorry for her team and what they’d had to put up with from her when they first let her join. At least she’d grown up now.

What was she going to say to them all when she saw them … she wasn’t even really Skye anymore! That person had changed and grown and adapted into someone completely different. Someone who wasn’t as self-centred and focused on ‘freedom of information’. The Rising Tide had noble ideas that were just not practical, as her time with Shield before it fell – and after – showed her. The prospect of sitting and talking to people who still believed like that, so black and white like that, was daunting and unnerving because Daisy wondered how many of them truly believed or were, as Miles had been doing, hacking on the side for money and profit and gain.

In fact, now she thought about it, had that been how the Rising Tide was maintained? Had it been, secretly, an organisation of hackers hacking for the highest bidder? Selling itself to the world as an organisation intent on freedom of information when in all actuality it had been taking that information for personal gain? Daisy shook herself: she was thinking too far into this; it wasn’t as if she had to go back to that life and that way of thinking and existing. She’d gotten out and found her true calling with Shield. She was Inhuman for Christ’s sake! They didn’t have anything on her that could entice her back or that they could threaten her with: Shield knew all about her hacking and had kindly seen it as an asset.

Nearly tripping over her own feet as she was pulled along a dingy alley, Daisy refocused her attention on Neon-Blue pulling her along. “… and like we need to meet your folks too! Tell me all about them! Are they perfect? I bet they are! Oh this is like the best day ever!”

Daisy stood stock still at that last phrasing. Something was off. Very off. Best day ever? Cal had always said that and hearing it from the mouth of the girl she couldn’t remember sent the hairs on the back of her neck standing to attention. Looking round Daisy found herself in a part of LA she didn’t recall: having been tugged down back alleys and side-streets. Pulling her hand out of the grip of Neon-Blue, Daisy clenched her hand examined her surroundings expecting an ambush.

Neon-Blue stopped and turned to face her. She smiled at Daisy, and the intent had probably been to put her at ease, but Daisy’s training kicked in and she was able to read behind the eyes: uncertainty and apprehension and uncomfortableness. The way the girl’s breathing was hyped and her eyes wide due to the adrenalin no doubt pumping through her veins. Her nervousness and the fact that she was eager to get going again, the way she hadn’t let Daisy get a word in edgeways and hurried them away before Daisy had had time to think about it. Neon-Blue didn’t realise it, but someone trained like Daisy was could read very clearly in her face and her bearing that this was a trap.

How could she have been so epically stupid?

 _Because you weren’t paying attention!_ Was it a thing all agents had? The voice of their S-O in the back of their minds telling them what to do and when to do it and that they had just been a complete dolt? Daisy resolved to ask when she next saw May. _Now. Think. Are they going to be dangerous? No. Not really. Not in comparison to Hydra or the other shit we’ve dealt with recently. Is it worth going along with it all and seeing what they want? Yes. Potentially. Always try to get as much information as you can. Play along. You know damn well you can look after yourself. If it goes south – at least we know you can get yourself out. Just remember. Breath. Focus. You can do this. I believe in you._

“Everything okay Skye?” her bright smile had dropped; fear crept into Neon-Blue’s face as the thought that maybe Daisy had cottoned on crossed her mind. Daisy didn’t know what Neon-Blue was frightened of most: her discovering their trap or what the others would say if she discovered it and forced Neon-Blue to return without her.

Daisy kept her eyes on Neon-Blue girl but used her other faculties to let her know what was happening around her. May had taught her how: you don’t try to hear or to feel or see out the corner of your eyes or anything – you just relax and if there’s something there, you’ll know. If something is off, you’ll be ready for it. As it was, there was just the two of them in the alley.

“Yeah no – I’m good. Just needed to catch my breath is all.”

Neon-Blue nodded slowly, a bright smile as the relief washed over her. Daisy wondered if this had been what it’d been like for May at the beginning of her tutorage: Ward hadn’t taught her anything really, other than how to disarm someone holding a gun. Had she been so open and had it been that easy for everyone to read what was happening and going on just by looking at her? Daisy was glad she had learned enough to at least know to try and keep all that hidden from view – to do her deliberating and fearing and whatnot behind a controlled and blank mask.

“I mean … I kinda wanna see everyone but like, I don’t wanna kill myself to get there quick like!” she pretended to joke. Neon-Blue smirked and giggled.

“Yeah. Sorry. I kinda got excited.”

“Nah it’s cool … where are we anyway? I thought the hideout was in that school that got half burnt down?”

Neon-Blue shook her head. “It got bulldozed and rebuilt the other year. We had to relocate.”

Daisy nodded in understanding; explained the narrow streets sufficiently enough. But she was going to check that was indeed the case for the old hideout at the first opportunity: just to make sure. As they resumed walking, at a much more reasonable pace, Daisy wondered with a pang if she was going to have to keep an eye on her former hacking group, she had lived in the past few years with the hope and belief that the Rising Tide were happy and fulfilled with all those Shield and Hydra files leaked thanks to the Black Widow. But from the suspicions she was getting and the fact that she knew she was walking into some kind of trap, Daisy figured the Rising Tide no longer considered that enough.

Chatting amicably with Neon-Blue as she led Daisy to the new Rising Tide hideout, Daisy kept an eye on her surroundings and where she was for future reference; relying on her memory of LA would help but she wanted some fresh memories to help back up her two-year old ones. It had been a while after all. Answering brightly to keep Neon-Blue in the firm belief she had duped Daisy, she began working through potential scenarios and what ifs and escape plans. All of which were useless because she hadn’t a clue what she was walking into.

Strangely that didn’t frighten her. In fact, because she was confident in her abilities and what she could do, she wasn’t scared in the slightest. Nervous yes, but not afraid. Daisy knew she could handle whatever it was the Rising Tide had in store for her. The unknown didn’t frighten her because she knew she was prepared for it.

 _Cocky much?_ May’s voice said with a slight smirk. _That’s when the mistakes happen_. But she wasn’t cocky. Just confident in what she had learned and what she had been taught.

Neon-Blue led her to an ordinary office block. Neither tall nor short, perfectly ordinary and unassuming and very, very, shut down. The windows were boarded and there was fire damage on the brickwork outside the windows as though the fire had raged on and billowed smoke out of the openings. Daisy assumed it was safe because the building had no ‘keep out’ signs or any ‘site to be demolished’ warnings. Not even an ‘unsafe structure, dangerous’ label. Maybe the council had just forgotten about it since it wasn’t really a risk or anything.

Perfect place for a secret, illicit organisation to rendezvous on a semi-regular basis.

Keying in an 8 digit code into the pad by the door, Neon-Blue gestured for Daisy to enter with a hand held wide as she kept the door from swinging shut. The hairs on the back of her neck prickling again, Daisy stepped inside the building, hearing the door thud shut behind her with the same finality as the door to the Cage on the Bus did when she had been locked inside it. The kind of thud that said ‘you aren’t leaving any time soon’.

She had to admit, she wasn’t expecting a receptionist.

Even as she stood and watched, the receptionist, a young man in a bow-tie and a _‘Doctor Who’_ look going on with his outfit picked up a phone and answered. “Hello? Good afternoon. This is the IEUC; how may we assist your undertaking?”

Daisy turned to Neon-Blue, her jaw set.

“The IEUC?” she asked the blue-haired hacker. “The Rising Tide has become part of the IEUC?” Daisy struggled to keep both her voice and her quaking under control.

Neon-Blue paled. “Come this way,” she tried steering Daisy towards a lift. The guy on the phone with the _Doctor Who_ vibe going on had forgotten his phone call.

“Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on!”

“Skye – please. You need to come with me.”

Perhaps she should’ve contained herself, but even when she had just been a hacker she’d never have agreed to this. “I mean it! What is going on?”

Neon-Blue glanced agitatedly at the receptionist, who shrugged, and then back at Daisy. “The future, that’s what. Now come _on_! You don’t want to be here when the Big Man gets in. He won’t let you leave unless you’ve sworn a blood-oath to serve him.”

“And I take it that’s what you idiots all did? What kind of psycho goes in for the 'blood oath' mumbo-jumbo?”

“Not like we had a choice!” Neon-Blue shouted. She seemed to realise what she had said and her eyes bulged as the receptionist sucked in a mouthful of air. Whatever this was, it was not what Daisy had been expecting – which was saying a lot considering she hadn’t been expecting at all. Taking in the situation, Daisy knew she had two options: leave or go with Neon-Blue hacker into the lift and see where that took her.

 _What are you here to do?_ May’s precise questioning rang in her head from the days they had spent sat in an SUV on surveillance while May drilled her in how to react when a situation feels like it’s heading south. _Always, when you have a choice, think: what are you here to do?_ Neon-Blue was standing by the lifts hopping from foot to foot like she needed to pee, anxious to get Daisy to follow her up; perhaps there was some danger in her being caught by the ‘Big Man’ and if that was so, then was the Rising Tide voluntarily a part of this IEUC thing Daisy had heard of when she'd been a part of the organisation? Maybe they did know about her joining Shield and that was why they wanted her? To help them?

Daisy didn’t know and there was only, really, one way to find out. She owed it to her former friends and associates to see if she could try and get them out of this mess they’d found themselves in … even if she was certain that the Rising Tide had always had people involved who were out for themselves and the benefit of a few select others. Besides, she thought wryly to herself as she stepped inside the lift with Neon-Blue, she was in LA to find Ari and if there was one thing Daisy was certain about, it was that Ari was nearly always where there was trouble. To find her, Daisy just had to find the right kind of trouble. The kind of trouble that didn’t make sense.

She just hoped she knew what she was doing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for taking so long in updating. I had an assessment at college that took all my attention and focus. But it's Christmas now so I have some time and here we are!
> 
> This kinda took on a life of it's own. Did not intend for it to happen this way but it just happened so I'm rolling with it :) But what did you think? Let me know :) Anyone think they can see where this is going? I'm curious ;) 
> 
> Fingers crossed I won't take so long to update next time! Love you all for reading and commenting and kudos-ing! 
> 
> Oh. And Merry Christmas :)


	12. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy Finds What She's Looking For - Kinda ...

Again. Not what she had expected.

Neon-Blue (Daisy still hadn’t found her name in the dregs of her memory) explained how the IEUC worked. “A collective made up of individual organisations to create a larger corporation that can deal with whatever anyone wants – getting information, making people disappear, whatever.”

“So a business of evil then?” Daisy asked coldly.

Neon-Blue shrugged. “Pays the rent.”

Shaking her head, Daisy closed her eyes. How had the world come to this? She had always thought and assumed humanity was fundamentally good, but if they could come up with something as twisted and wrong as business-ised evil … and for the Rising Tide to get sucked into its nasty web? What even was this thing? Daisy longed to get away and start researching and digging; her hacking roots itching at her as she thought of her laptop in her bag and all the dirty secrets she could unearth about this place and the clients they had. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be good. The last thing anyone needed was another Hydra-type organisation on the loose.

“Each floor is dedicated to a different department.”

“You mean former independent illicit organisation? Like the Rising Tide on one floor doing what they do best and say the ‘Corpse Disposal Unit’ on level four and –”

“Seven.”

“What?” Daisy choked. She’d been joking about a ‘corpse disposal unit’.

“The C-D lot are on level seven.” Neon-Blue shrugged again neglectantly and Daisy wondered why she’d let this go on as long as it had: she should’ve just iced the girl in that alley and walked away. Daisy was not prepared, or in the right frame of mind, for this shit. Why couldn’t there just be Hydra to deal with? Just _one_ evil that they could focus on rather than loads and loads of differing and competing organisations for them to keep in line and check on and contend with. Sadly Daisy was becoming used to the fact that simplicity was not something the universe provided in abundance.

The lift pinged and the automated voice told them the doors were opening. “This way Skye,” the neon-haired hacker said as the doors opened wide enough. She disappeared out of the lift and Daisy sighed, lingering in the doorway to stop them closing: another decision before her – go with Neon-Blue or hit the button for the lobby and get the hell out while she still could. Option two was looking rather tempting – she could turn and leave and pretend this wasn’t that big of an issue until it reached Shield’s radar … but then staying was likely to be her best shot at finding Ari. This whole thing was the right side of strange trouble that her friend often got herself in the middle of.

Before she could make up her mind, something caught her eye.

The lift had opened up onto a corridor lined on both sides with lifts, and getting into the empty one directly across from Daisy was …

That lift across the way closed shut and a number lit up on the display above the doors. Stepping back into her own lift in a clam daze, Daisy jammed the button for the top floor, watching the lift doors closing against Neon-Blue’s voice calling sharply to her, “Skye!”

This could not be coincidence. The fates of the universe must have decided to aid Daisy’s search the unfindable.

Oddly calm and focused, Daisy stared at the display above the floor-buttons as a sense of inevitability washed over her. Seeing a glimpse of a person, the barest shadowy hint of someone that she thought she knew was enough to force a decision before she had even thought about it. She had simply acted on instinct.

Some primordial force of the universe was egging her, driving her, on. Desperate for the two of them to collide, to enter the same flight path, to meet in orbit of a shared purpose. And now that Daisy had caught a glimpse of a figure she was now certain she recognised, the need to find and face and confront wasn’t going to ebb away, even if there was another Hydra-like organisation coming out to play.

The ding of the lift roused her from her daydream as an automated voice announced the arrival of the top floor. Daisy was out of the doors before they had even opened. Hurtling down the corridor, following the sound of hurrying footfalls that were always one turn and one bend ahead of her. When a heavy thud echoed down the corridor towards her, Daisy halted her headlong dash to dig through her satchel for her icer and stuck it into the waistband of her jeans before rounded in the last bend as the heavy fire door swung shut against the frame.

Pulling open the door with a tug, Daisy pressed past it before it swung shut on her and slipped into a dingy stairwell. Relying and trusting her instincts and that strange _knowing_ to head up rather than down, she stormed up the stairs three at a time, her thighs burning as she regretted forgoing some of May’s more rigorous training in her S-O’s absence, simply taking it on faith that she was going in the right direction and that her prey had fled this way.

Bursting onto the roof in a tangle of limbs, Daisy squinted in the bright light and searched round for a glimpse of the quarry. Her icer held firmly as she checked her sightlines and the blind spots and cleared the immediate area of danger, she felt her adrenalin ebb away as her eyes adjusted to the bright light and settled upon a lone figure. Leaning against the railing that ran the perimeter of the roof as some form of safety, observing the city of LA as though there was not a single care in the world upon her shoulders was indeed Agent Toss-Pot herself.

“You can put that thing away Dayz.” Daisy realised then that she had her icer trained on her friend’s back, ready to put the idiot out at the first sign of … well, anything. “Not that it’d do you any good … but still. Principle and all that crap.” No point in asking _how_ her friend knew Daisy had the icer pointed at the back of her head … answers were rarely just _given_. Daisy closed her eyes and sighed, whether in relief or otherwise she wasn’t too sure yet: after counting to ten she did as her friend said and tucked the icer back into the waistband of her jeans. Striding across the gritty rooftop Daisy took her place at the steel railing beside Ari.

Just Ari.

In all the years Daisy had known her, Ari had _never_ had a surname. A different name perhaps – one she’d once shared with Daisy in order to gain her trust, a name she otherwise ignored – but never a surname.

Surprisingly small for one who could cause so much headache (though Daisy knew size was by no means a judgement of a person’s capability to kick ass – being handed her ass countless times on a silver platter by May had proven that size had nothing to do with how dangerous a person could be), with pale blonde hair, green eyes and the kind of figure and appearance that was both stunning and non-descript all at once. Like she could blend in or stand out whenever it suited her to do so. Like if she didn’t want to be notice, then she wouldn’t be. Contained. If Daisy had to use just one word to describe her friend, it would be that one. Contained. Everything Ari needed or was or could be or is was contained within her. In her soul.

She wore worn dark skinny jeans, ripped – but not for fashion and aesthetic reasons, but because they had genuinely been ripped for one reason or another – and sturdy brown boots that were scuffed from no doubt the same instance that had ripped her jeans. A red over-sized hoodie with the sleeves missing in place of an actual shirt. Perhaps she’d lost hers somewhere? No doubt the answer would be ‘left it on some person’s bedroom floor last night’ if Daisy asked so she didn’t.

There was a light sprinkling of goosebumps on Ari’s naked arms when Daisy joined her by the edge of the roof. Even without looking Ari in the eye Daisy knew there would be that twinkle of mirth and mischief and that smug arrogance of someone who was in the know and enjoyed everyone else running around blind and headless.

Now that they were face to face, Daisy didn’t actually know what to do.

Punch her?

Hug her?

Throw her off the fucking roof?

Her emotions were mixed and scrambled and it was impossible, right then, for Daisy to figure them out. On the one hand, Ari had always been there whenever Daisy had needed someone, but on the other hand, Ari had lied – _lied to her fucking face_ – to her for as long as they had known each other. Lies and half-truths and so many evaded questions … a life time of dodging the bullet … sometimes Daisy didn’t know why she was friends with Ari when she grated so heavily on her nerves and pissed her off so epically.

Which was another thing: their friendship. Born from a lonely orphan who found an adult that actually _listened_ and tolerated her and … and whatever Ari’s motives had been. Usually when two people are close and trusting and best friends with someone that means they know everything about each other and trust and respect each other and it means the friendship has naturally progressed from awkward acquaintances to the point of you-can’t-get-rid-of-me-now and what-would-you-do-without-me friendship. Usually a pair of friends had boundaries and lines and knew those lines and boundaries and what was okay and what wasn’t.

Daisy couldn’t explain how or why or when (but then who ever can?). It was like it was ingrained into her being – being Ari’s friend and having Ari as hers. Like that day in the playground, like some great outside force had driven Johnny Falkner to be mean to her and force her to go sit on that bench next to the least scary-looking adult in the park. The thought that the Fates or Destiny or Whatever had preordained their meeting and their being so ingrained in the others’ lives was something that caused Daisy to quake. It was something that had only occurred to her in the moments she stood leaning against the railing beside Ari on that windswept roof in the middle of LA.

A sense that they had been thrust together and manipulated into each other’s lives and no matter how badly they pissed the other off, nothing they did could sever the bond they had – whatever the fuck it was. Best friends was the easiest way Daisy had to describe it; because a best friend is who you turn to when you have no idea what the hell is going on, right? And hands down, Ari was that person for Daisy. It wasn’t all bad either – in fact there were less than a handful of times they had argued and fallen out; probably Daisy reflected wryly, because they hardly saw anything of each other.

She just wasn’t too sure what the fuck she _felt_ about Ari. A huge confused mass of emotion and feeling and a sense that there was something … missing. Overlooked. And Daisy didn’t need any other secrets about her identity and heritage and shit thank you very much – she was hoping confronting Ari about her role in her abduction from Cal and Jiaying would settle all that uncertainty and that sense of something unfinished and still unanswered. The undeniable truth of the matter was; Ari knew more about Daisy than Daisy did about Ari.

But Daisy pushed all that raging confusing unjust emotion and uncertainty away and focused on the simple fact: Ari had been the agent that had called in the need to extract her as a baby from the Hunan Province in China. So now was her opportunity to ask: Why?

“You were in Hunan.” Daisy hadn’t intended for it to be so accusatory – but the words tumbled out in an unstoppable blurt and if Ari had expected this discovery to sit well with Daisy then she had another thing coming.

Ari sighed, her shoulders fell slightly as she stared out across the cityscape. “Took you long enough to dig it up. I’m actually surprised you didn’t find this sooner. It wasn’t as if I made the truth difficult for you to find.”

Daisy closed her eyes and shook her head, a disbelieving smile on her face. "You utter –” but she didn’t have the words. They wouldn’t come. “Was this some kind of … of test?”

Ari had the decency to look affronted. “Test? You think I’m _that_ twisted do you?”

“What other explanation is there for keeping it from me all these fucking years? When you _knew_ I was searching for answers!”

She stared at Ari, willing her friend – though Daisy was seriously considering revoking that term in a moment – to _respond_. To talk. To, for once, open up and explain what the fuck was going on. Always with Ari it felt like being dragged along at high speed on some hare-brained adventure that you only ever half understood and half got the significance of, and when it was over there was no clarification and most the time no knowing if there was even anything accomplished or what it had even been about.

The minder Daisy had lived with for a while had said that Ari viewed the universe in two separate ways: the way that everyone saw it and the way that was about fixing something that had gone so horribly wrong, it changed the fabric of everything and made things happen that were never supposed to happen … Daisy was never sure if she believed it or not. Right now it sounded like a load of bollocks.

“Perhaps I was just waiting …”

“For what?”

Ari’s lips quivered as though she wanted to smirk but felt Daisy would chuck her off the roof if she did. “You only found this out because you’re with Shield. I was waiting for you to wake up to the real world before I said anything …”

Daisy set her jaw. Her temper rising and the urge to let loose … it was like a bubbling pot of water that was threatening to boil over any second. She was frustrated and annoyed and pissed and felt like whichever way she turned was met with only dead ends. Ari wasn’t helping in the slightest … honestly she wondered why she thought it might help. Talking over the phone was one thing – she didn’t have to physically deal with her friend’s shit – and Daisy knew that Ari would always help her if she needed it … it was just that Ari was rather difficult to deal with, what with those walls that made May’s look like garden fences. It was almost as if Ari was deliberately provoking her.

“What about Dublin?”

“What about Dublin?” Ari shot back sharply, something like hurt in her tone. “I saved your ass – you’re welcome by the way – while you ran. That’s all there is to say about Dublin.”

Daisy ignored the remark. “You knew why I was there. New York had happened by that point. I knew about the ‘real world,’ everyone did. You could’ve told me then!”

The fight seemed to drain out of Ari somewhat. The cocky – ‘and what?’ – attitude dissipated before Daisy’s eyes and she realised that her friend was bone-weary-tired. Tired to the point of exhaustion and beyond – the kind of tired that wasn’t physical but mental. Ari was drained. Exhausted. Worn-out. Tired beyond belief. She had all but given up on that great, grand mystical _thing_ she was always so focused on and it showed.

Ari spoke next with perhaps the most honesty Daisy had ever heard from her before; not that Ari wasn’t honest, but she was always holding _something_ back. “I was gonna … but things just … escalated before I could. Then when I woke …” she shrugged. “Had no idea where you were.”

“That’s never stopped you from finding me before.”

Ari half shrugged again and Daisy let it go. “So you gonna tell me why you decided I needed to be removed from my parents?”

Watching Ari’s hand clench and relax, Daisy knew she had caught her unprepared; Ari hadn’t thought Daisy would be here, would catch up with her, like this. No doubt she always wanted this conversation to happen on her terms, with the upper hand firmly on her wrist … Daisy didn’t care. She’d spent their entire relationship feeling as though she was deliberately left in the dark and not knowing quite what was happening while Ari held all the aces. It was time, high time, she turned the fucking tables.

“Because neither of us is leaving this roof until you give me some goddamned answers.”

Staring with the glare she had seen May giving Coulson when she wanted answers, Daisy didn’t remove her gaze from Ari, watching her friend as she attempted to wriggle out of the corner Daisy had backed her into. Over the past few years, Daisy had had the opportunity to watch several of the best as they were backed into a corner. She had been able to watch as they got themselves out of situations that seemed impossible to walk away from.

Coulson, for example, could near enough talk himself out of anything. And if that failed then he wasn’t half bad at kicking ass either – not that he ever needed to because by that point the team had usually caught up and found him. Mack and Bobbi would find some way to shut the lights off and cause a distraction. May would just kick ass. Daisy herself had adopted a combination of May’s tactics and Coulson’s – try talking and if that didn’t work then kick ass.

Ari’s tactics were different. She seemed to be doing absolutely nothing … although Daisy suspected (or perhaps hoped) she was evaluating and thinking the situation through extensively. Then in the time it took for Daisy to blink, Ari stirred into action and simply just … ran. Or more specifically, she vaulted lightly over the rail on the roof top and sprang over the edge of the building – complete with a tight little summersault which Daisy was sure she’d executed just to show off – and out of sight.

For one wild moment Daisy thought Ari had _jumped_ jumped. She scrambled to the very edge of the building, heart in throat, only to see the fricking fire escape and Ari scampering lightly like a squirrel monkey (she blamed Fitz and his weeks stuck in a hospital bed for her extensive knowledge on monkeys) down the thing as though it were a child’s climbing frame. Swearing and cursing, Daisy ran to the ladder and began the decent knowing that Ari would be long gone by the time she reached the ground.

She reached the ground and found no sign of Ari and so cursing once again, Daisy dug her hands into the pockets of her jacket as she headed in the direction she thought her motel was. It was getting late and she was hungry to boot. Start fresh in the morning and hope Ari hadn’t fled the city …

~

Of course – _of course_ – Ari would be at the motel waiting for her.

Upper hand and all that jazz.

How she had gotten in was anyone’s guess because thanks to the precautions Daisy had taken, entry short of breaking down the door was impossible. Maybe she’d slithered in through the window? Shoving the how aside in favour for the why, Daisy shut the door with a sharp snap that failed to make her intruder jump. Not now that Ari was back in her element with the aces all back up her sleeve.

“That for me?” Ari asked, nodding to the paper bag of McDonalds half-forgotten in Daisy’s hand. “Because I’m starved Dayz.”

Well. Somebody had cheered up now she wasn’t cornered on a rooftop and expected to answer questions she’d been avoiding since she had crept into the orphanage in the dead of night to find a newly-named Skye searching the kitchen for some mid-night snack, and declared them friends. Daisy had a sudden desire to pull out her Big Mac and fries and eat them where she stood right in front of Ari and watch her outrage at being denied food. Thing was Ari would probably just stand there and watch, now she thought about it, and then ask if she had enjoyed the meal.

Daisy knew that she could ask the question now and that Ari would answer. Thing was, Daisy knew that while Ari would be truthful, she’d also only tell what she wanted to tell – and nothing more. Ari had fled the roof and come here because she was prepared and she had all her bases covered. Like when you retreat to regroup and head back stronger. Ari had retreated, regrouped and now she was ready. And whatever she said, Daisy knew it wouldn’t be everything. So she vowed, there and then, to wait until Ari was off her guard and Daisy could get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth out of her.

The last time they’d talked face-to-face echoed in her mind. That time she’d demanded to know what the hell was wrong with Ari – and then uttered how it wasn’t a wonder no one could stand her – knowing the second the words had passed her lips that she’d crossed some line she wasn’t aware of. Ari hadn’t spoken a word to her during the mess in Dublin – she’s spoken _at_ her, but not _to_ her – and maintained her stony silence until that phone call Daisy was convinced Ari had answered by mistake. So no wonder she hadn’t answered her demand for an answer back on the roof. And no wonder she had said hardly a word since Daisy arrived.

Tossing the bag of fast food in Ari’s general direction, Daisy slumped down on the edge of the communal bed just as her phone started vibrating in her pocket – a sequence of vibrations that told Daisy it was ‘The Director’ calling her. Due to the gifts and powers that she now possessed, Daisy was acutely attuned to every and any kind of vibration – thus meaning she could create different vibration patterns on her phone (as most anyone could do) and assign them to a certain contact and know immediately who it was contacting her from the pattern of the device vibrating against her thigh alone. A different pattern for every contact.

Pulling the phone out of her pocket and eyeing Ari as her ‘friend’ turned her nose up at the burger in the paper bag, Daisy answered the call. She didn’t immediately answer her once-pseudo-father-figure because she was still annoyed at the Director, something that took him a couple of moments to figure out.

“Daisy?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Daisy it’s Coulson … are – are you there?” Daisy rolled her eyes and willed Coulson to get on with it, still watching Ari – who had plonked herself down in the only chair and was absentmindedly flicking through the channels on the outdated TV.

“Look. Something’s come up and if you’re there then please answer otherwise I’ll hang up and assume something is wrong and that someone unfriendly has gotten hold of this device.”

Sighing heavily, Daisy figured it was probably best to speak.

“I’m here.”

“We have a problem.” There was a stagnant pause on the other end of the line before Coulson continued, “A prominent Asset has been kidnapped from a Care-Home in DC. I want you to lead the rescue. A jet will arrive to pick you up in ten minutes – they’ll send you the location once they’ve found a safe place to land. You’ll be properly debriefed by the team when you get there. Whatever personal quest you’re currently engaged in is to be put on hold. Understood?”

Orders. Not a friend talking to a friend, or even the approachable Level Eight Agent Coulson talking to Tech Consultant Skye, but the Director talking to an agent. Well then. If that’s how it was going to be then fine.

“Understood. _Director_.” Daisy hung up and turned to Ari, who was still surfing through the channels, flicking between them so fast, Daisy wondered how anyone could see enough to know what was on one channel to the next, the images blurred into one smooth motion of colour and sound until Daisy had to look away, feeling dizzy.

Ari gave no indication she had heard or cared what had happened in the phone call, but Daisy wasn’t convinced – Ari _always_ knew what was going on and she would bet her right foot that the liar knew Daisy had been called away for a mission and was planning something witty and funny to say as she made her exit or watched Daisy leave. Well there was one way to stop that from occurring. Besides – there was no way to know when or if she would see her friend again. Ari would certainly ensure it never happened unless she wanted it to, Daisy was sure finding the unpredictable nuisance had been a fluke of nature. The universe aliening for a moment that otherwise never would have come about.

“I’ve got a mission,” she said, getting to her feet and stowing the few belonging she’d removed from her bag back inside it.

“Ah. Shame. Another time then.” Ari continued to flick through the channels at high speed. She was going to pass the national speed limit in a moment.

“Yeah, yeah it is.” Daisy paused for effect, seeing the small grin of victory begin to spread across Ari’s face before … “Guess you’ll just have to come with me, won’t you?”

Ari’s head snapped towards Daisy so fast Daisy was worried Ari would get whiplash. “What?” Her voice was that of one who’d been told the Netflix subscription had been cancelled unless she wanted to pay for it herself.

“Well the world is a big place and I don’t want to lose you in it again. After all that trouble you went to finding my motel … all that effort wasted …” she supressed the urge to smirk at the look of outrage upon Ari’s face.

At that moment her phone buzzed indicating Bobbi had sent her a text, looking down Daisy opened the message to find a google maps with a red pin hovering over some big tall building by the coast indicating where her extraction was waiting. Well, _their_ extraction now that Ari was coming too. She sent a quick, _on my way. Got company_ back to Bobbi and then turned her attention back to Ari – seemed she had been doing that a lot in the past fifteen minutes. Thankfully Ari hadn’t scarpered. Yet.

“You need to get anything before we go? Pack a bag?”

Ari grunted as she got to her feet, staring unblinkingly into Daisy’s eyes. A thrill ran through her when she realised that Ari wasn’t staring at her as though she was some annoying kid she’d unwittingly promised to look out for. No – Ari was staring at her as she would an adult. And it sent a tingle down her spine to know that as of this moment, Ari was no longer seeing her as that kid she met in a park twelve years ago.

_But what does she see you as now, if not that little kid?_

Like hell was Daisy brave enough to dare ask.

She just opened the door and led the way out without looking back, knowing – somehow – that Ari would follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this thing where I keep coming up with alternative versions and ways to tell the story that seem better. I think I'm going to stick with this one though and see it through if I can. I quite like it.
> 
> SORRY for taking so long. I was busy at college and doing the show (I do performing arts so hetic) but have a new chapter :)
> 
> as always let me know what you think and thank you for reading and being so patient with me.
> 
> (also the site won't let me put the right date coz I'm not in america ... *fumes* so FYI this chapter was published on the FOURTH JUNE)


	13. Flight and Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy Plans A Mission ...

Ari said virtually nothing as the pair of them made their way across the city to their extraction point; a quite rooftop a couple of buildings over from Union Station. Daisy stopped and looked up at the redbrick building before they entered, remembering her first encounter with Coulson, May, Ward and FitzSimmons and the havoc they unwittingly caused Mike Peterson to unleash inside the walls. While Ari did whatever it was she was here to do, Daisy found herself up on one of the upper levels, peering down at the grand hall below.

This was the spot, Daisy mused as she turned to lean her back against the rail, where May had first saved her ass.

Daisy grinned as she recalled the ease with which May had taken down that gunman; so fricking badass. She could almost see the dude crumpling to the floor and May kneeling over him, staring at Daisy with a hard look that said _you’re a bag full of trouble aren’t you?_ before getting to her feet and pulling Daisy to hers.

Shaking herself out of the daydream, and realising she had left Ari alone long enough for her friend to make a run for it, Daisy hurried back to the ground floor where she – shockingly – found Ari leaning against a pillar, clearly waiting patiently for her to return. Daisy tried to hide the surprise on her face, attempting to swallow it down and replace it with a cool and professional mask of indifference, before she reached her friend. A battered old duffle hung from Ari’s right shoulder. Daisy led the way out of the station and across the street towards the building where the Quinjet and Bobbi were waiting.

There was a flicker of disruption as the Quinjet dropped the cloaking and came into view when Daisy and Ari made it onto the roof. If Ari was surprised she didn’t show it, however her eyes glinted as if she found something amusing or was recalling some hidden joke. Daisy looked away before her friend noticed she was starting. Again. Always staring at her – as if her eyes were drawn like magnets to wherever Ari stood. Mentally scolding herself to get a grip, Daisy marched forwards as the ramp lowered and led the way onto the Quinjet.

Bobbi, Hunter, Mack and Lincoln were waiting and Daisy dumped her duffle by a seat and sat down with a huff. Ari found a corner to linger in as Mack lifted the ramp and probably reactivated the cloaking mechanism too. The expectant air grew thick; Daisy – her eyes unwittingly once again having sought Ari out – noticing how amused the entire situation seemed to be making her friend.

Problem was, Daisy wasn’t too sure how to go about explaining who Ari was. She decided on the truth – kinda. “This is –”

“Halysis.” Daisy turned, with Mack, Hunter and Lincoln, to glance at Ari while Bobbi just shrugged.

“Yeah. I know who she is,” she said. “But one, why is she with you and two,” Bobbi flickered her gaze at Ari – or Halysis as tall blonde knew the short blonde, “pretty sure the rumour is you _died_ thirteen years ago.” Ari’s tightly controlled grin of amusement got bigger, but she said nothing, a wild glint in her green eyes.

“I don’t know about the second thing,” Daisy began; the glint in Ari’s eyes had told her to keep quiet about the fact that Bobbi knew her by a different name, “but I knew _Halysis_ when I was kid and it turns out that she’s the twat that took me away from my parents when I was a baby,” Lincoln’s head whipped around to stare at her as she spoke, “and since Coulson decided that there is an op I’m desperately needed for, I figured best bring her along until I find the time to get my answers.”

“Why not just come back when we’re done?” Hunter asked.

“Because Halysis has a habit of not being where she’s meant to be when she’s supposed to be there.” Bobbi told him. “Or at least, so the rumours say.”

Daisy found it strange that Bobbi spoke of Ari as though she were some kind of Shield legend – like when FitzSimmons had spoken in awe of May once they found out she was The Cavalry. All Daisy knew and cared about was that Ari had been there in Hunan and taken her from her parents. The rest she didn’t give a damn for. She could be the fricking Dali Lama and Daisy would just as readily punch her in the face for lying to her all along.

“Wait –” Mack said, frowning at Ari, “She’s the agent that single-handedly took on the Rook and dragged his sorry ass to the Fridge?”

Wait. What?

Hunter’s eyes widened. “I always thought it was a bloke that took down the Rook.”

“Why’d you assume _that_?” Bobbi asked sharply.

Hunter shrugged. “Never figured a girl would cut a guy’s boys off like that.”

“Hunter, only a _girl_ – as you put it – could,” and that, it seemed, was that. Although the discussion went on for several minutes longer, while Hunter, Bobbi and Mack tried to decide if taking down ‘the Rook’ (whoever that jackass was) was more of an achievement than being Maria Hill’s S-O. What freaked Daisy out the most was how content Ari was at letting the three agents natter away as though she weren’t standing five feet away from them. Lincoln settled down on the seat beside Daisy, a wild look in his eyes mirroring how Daisy was feeling inside. If what Bobbi and the other two were saying was true, then Daisy didn’t know her friend at all …

Clearing her throat, Daisy interrupted, “Hey – look – don’t we have some op we ought to be getting to? Some important Asset gone missing or something?”

That seemed to put the three of them back on track. Suddenly they were no longer a trio of adolescents fangirling over an over-idolised idol, they were professional secret agents about to embark upon a dangerous op for the Director of the world’s most prominent information and security agency.

Bobbi took charge. “All we’ve been told is that a retired Asset has been kidnapped from a Care-Home in DC, along with about a dozen other residents. Talbot passed the information over to Coulson because of who one of those kidnapped is.”

“Our Asset,” Daisy clarified.

“Yes.”

“Do we know who this Asset is?”

“Coulson hasn’t seen fit to release that information.” Bobbi said carefully, “He says he wants the Asset’s identity and the fact they have been taken to stay hidden and protected for as long as possible – ideally he would like the Asset returned without anyone having to be informed.”

Over in the corner, Ari had one eyebrow raised. Daisy knew the feeling all too well but there wasn’t anything to be done about it.

She sighed. “Okay … _where_ was the Asset and the others taken from? And how long ago?”

Bobbi handed her a tablet. “All the information we have is here. They were taken two weeks ago; the residents were in their beds when the nurses checked on them at 10.00pm, and then when they went to check up thirty minutes later, the beds were empty.”

“Spooky,” Daisy muttered, accepting the tablet. “Was the Asset the target?”

“Coulson doesn’t think so,” Lincoln said.

“Talbot’s sources have heard whispers that a bunch of old people were taken to a warehouse outside the city of Montevideo in Uruguay.” Mack rumbled from beside the screens behind the co-pilot’s chair.

“How do we know it’s the old people from the DC Care-Home? Have they been identified?”

“A few of them yes.” Bobbi took a breath and continued. “We don’t know why they were taken, or what for – but Fitz used that Comms unit you set up and he managed to get hold of a phone call and by running voice recognition software he got a match for both parties. The first guy, the guy we’re assuming took the residents from the Home, is a Harvey Edson.”

Daisy pulled up the appropriate file on the tablet while Bobbi continued. “He’s a known trafficker, and a dead end because Talbot’s people pulled his body out of the East River in New York three days ago. They managed to link him to the kidnappings but that’s about it.”

“And the second guy?”

Lincoln shifted beside Daisy; she glanced at him and they shared a smile as Bobbi took a sip of water to soften her drying throat. “The second guy we think is the guy in charge. He must have employed Edson to take the residents and then had him killed to shut him up. He’s in our databases, which is how we managed to find out who he is, but we have nothing on him, not even a reason as to why he’s in the databases under a Red Label.”

“Who is he?”

“A Russian. Vladmon Burksi.”

At this, Ari – who had been minding her own business, fiddling with something in her duffle – snapped her head up. The solid thud of her black bag hitting the floor drew the attention of the five agents who’d been busy with the op brief. Eyes wide, it was clear to Daisy that the name ‘Vladmon Burksi’ meant something to Ari.

“You know him?” she demanded, pulling up the only picture Shield had of the Russian (a grainy shot of their guy in profile wearing heavy black sunglasses and a hood) and turning the tablet so Ari could see. But she didn’t look. Instead she shook her head and sank to the floor as though she’d been deflated like the air being let out of a balloon.

“Know him would imply I’ve sat down and had a conversation with the bastard,” she muttered, but Daisy wasn’t convinced.

“You’re going to have to do better than that.”

Focusing Daisy with a hard glare, her green eyes flashing with something Daisy had never seen before, Ari said only; “You think you’re the only one in the universe called Daisy Johnson? The odds are the guy I’m thinking of is not the guy you’re after – in fact, you’d better pray that he is not.”

It felt as though she was trying to convince herself more than them; her silence spoke loud enough and clear enough that she was unwilling to say anymore on the subject. The look in Ari’s eyes hinted at a history with this guy that Daisy wasn’t sure she wanted to be privy to and so she let it go. Either it was the same guy or it wasn’t and they’d deal with that either way when they knew more … Bobbi rounded off the brief with a short, “Our orders are to bring the Asset back safe and take Burksi into custody for questioning.”

“In other words don’t kill the bastard?” Daisy checked, unwillingly using Ari’s term for their perp as Bobbi nodded and made her way to the pilot’s chair. “I’ll go through all this and try and come up with a plan. How long will it take to get there?”

“Few hours,” Mack shrugged. “Maybe more. We have to go the long way to avoid detection.” Daisy sighed as she strapped herself in while Bobbi fired up the engines. “So best get comfortable,” he threw a glance at Ari, still sitting on the floor with a look of determined confusion upon her face – it made her look young, incredibly young, childish almost. Daisy sighed.

Hunter made himself at home beside Bobbi in the co-pilot’s seat while Mack leant against the back of it so he could talk to them both. They had immediately resumed their conversation about the Rook and for some reason it pissed Daisy off to hear her friend being described as some legendary figure who rode in with The Cavalry to save the day. That wasn’t Ari … was it?

It was going to be a long flight, of that she was sure. Daisy settled her head against the back of the seat and balanced her foot on the edge of the seat, hugging her knee to her chest as she began flicking through what they had about this kidnapping of old people. Seriously, who kidnapped old people and what for? They probably all were dead or would be dead by now anyway since they had been living in a Care-Home and not a single one of them was over 85 years old.

“I don’t get it,” she muttered, “What’s the point? Why?”

“Sometimes there is no point,” Bobbi called from the pilot’s seat, “and that in its self is the point.”

With that, they set off after the Asset-Who-Cannot-Be-Named while Ari sat on the cold floor as far away from them as she could possibly get with her mind clearly a thousand miles away, dwelling on only Ari knew what.

Lincoln leant towards her, touching her hand to gain her attention. Daisy looked up from the tablet to meet his gaze. “Is it worth it? Bringing her along?” he jerked his head in Ari’s direction, not that Daisy didn’t already know who he was talking about, “Won’t she just get in the way? I mean – are the answers she can give you worth the possibility that she’ll mess up this op?”

Daisy didn’t know how to explain. How could she? How could she tell him that some part of her knew – _knew_ – that without Ari, they would fail this op of Coulson’s. How could she tell him that she knew her friend’s arrival in their lives and their ‘world’ heralded something … big? How could she tell him that since May had left to find her friend in the hopes of saving Simmons – the very friend who Daisy suspected was now slouched in the corner of the Quinjet lost deep in thought – she had felt the very air around her humming and shuddering with anticipation? How could she explain that something was coming – something big – and that without Ari at their sides that something big would consume them all in darkness.

How could she tell him that finding Ari in LA had been Fate? Destiny? Other words with a capital letter and sound mystical and purposeful? That bringing her along on this venture had been more than an unwillingness to let the chance to find the truth pass by. That it had been because Ari had _needed_ to come along. Ari hadn’t even tried to wriggle out of coming and that, in itself, was evidence enough for Daisy; Ari _had_ to be here. For whatever reasons she was needed – or would be needed.

But she saw Lincoln’s point – Ari was an unknown variant in this operation; they had no idea what she was capable of and what she could do and the chances were that she would turn out to be a liability out in the field. However, Daisy suspected Ari wouldn’t take kindly to being asked to remain behind in the Quinjet for their return …

“Bobbi and Mack know her – she’s Shield. So she’s bound to be at least _partially_ trained. Just trust me.”

Lincoln nodded and let it be.

Daisy spent the remained of the flight going through what little they had about the kidnappings and surreptitiously spying on Ari, although neither proved to be overly entertaining – the most Ari did was relocate from the cold hard floor of the jet to one of the seats lining the walls. She still appeared long lost in thought. Annoyed at the lack of intelligence, Daisy crossed the plane to the screens and radio set up behind the co-pilot’s chair and logged into the IAC unit.

Several long hours later, and after discussing with Mack and Bobbi, Daisy contacted Coulson over their secure line. Having pulled up a live satellite feed of the compound suspected of housing the kidnapped OAPs and watching increasing activity bustle around the site in the past hour, they had decided to calling and ask for backup. Daisy wouldn’t have bothered to speak to Coulson in person if not for the fact that several of the vehicle licence plates – yeah the satellite image quality was _that_ good – that Daisy ran, belonged to a number of stolen cars from the Washington State area. Details of the stolen vehicles led to several local security camera stills picturing known Hydra associates in the process of stealing sed vehicles. And even that wouldn’t have warranted a personal call to the Director, if not for the fact that she was almost one hundred per cent sure that one of the unidentified Hydra goons was Ward.

The line engaged and Coulson answered, his face appearing on the screen in front of Daisy with a big fat frown across it. “What is it?” He demanded, leaning against his desk.

“Sir, I’ve done some digging. The site where we believe our Asset has been taken to has been increasing in activity over the past few hours,” she was determined not to let Coulson get a word in until she was done, and so she took a breath and rushed on, “and I wouldn’t bother you personally with the request for backup only I ran some of the vehicle plates and there was a report about a week ago of the cars being stole from a retailers. Security footage shows known Hydra assholes stealing the cars and I’m pretty sure one of them was Ward.”

Coulson stared at a spot on the floor of his office for a long moment. Daisy waited wondering if he was even going to bother to respond. His orders had been specific; if they encountered Ward he was to know about it immediately.

“Fitz and I will join you with a Strike Team. We’ll get in contact when we arrive.”

“Do you want us to wait?”

“Negative. Go in. Find out what you can. Try not to engage until you can be sure of the situation.” He lifted his eyes from the floor to look at Daisy, his arm still in a sling and hidden beneath his jacket, a look of concern on his face. “You haven’t heard from May have you?”

Daisy shook her head, frowning. “Why?”

The Director shrugged. “I don’t know … I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong.”

“She’s looking for an old friend,” Daisy spilled. “Someone who she thinks can help save Simmons.” This got her team’s immediate attention.

At this information Coulson narrowed his eyes; Daisy wondered if he knew what ‘friend’ May had gone looking for and guessed she wouldn’t get an answer either way. But the news didn’t settle the Director, in fact it seemed to agitate him all the more. “She should be back by now …” he sighed and nodded. “Fitz and I will get a Strike Team together and meet you there. In the meantime you are to proceed as ordered.”

Biting back her retort, Daisy nodded stiffly. “Yes _Sir_.”

Coulson fixed his jaw. “That’ll be all agent,” with that he ended the call and the line went dead.

Fan-bloody-tastic.

Turning in the chair to face the others, Daisy sighed. Mack and Lincoln were waiting patiently for her while Bobbi and Hunter listened expectantly from the cockpit. “Alright. When we get there we’ll land someplace remote – Bobbi I’ll leave that to you. Unfortunately we can’t get too close or we’ll be detected. We land and we cloak. Then we split into three teams and approach the compound. First thing we need to do is identify what the hell is going on and where our Asset and the other kidnapped OAPs are being held. We’ll maintain radio silence but check in every ten minutes for an update.”

“When do we act?” Mack asked.

“It’ll depend on what we’re facing and what’s going on. And on how far off Coulson is with the Strike Team. You’ll have to be prepared to act when I give the order; Bobbi, you and Hunter, I want you to find where our Asset and the others are being held and be ready to protect them or get them out when I say.”

“But they’re old people!” Hunter protested. “How are we meant to get twelve old people out at short notice?” he demanded.

“Most of them will probably be dead by now,” Ari said dryly, “so it’ll only be about seven ‘old people’ you’ll have to manage.”

Daisy threw a glare at her friend, as did the others, but she didn’t react. “Just be prepared to do what you can,” she told Hunter.

“What about us?” Mack asked. “You said three teams?”

“You and Lincoln find us an exit. Several exits if you can – if things go south we’ll need a backup exit or three.” Lincoln nodded and Mack gave a thumbs up.

“I want you all to keep your eyes open for anything and everything. If you have the chance to find out what the heck is going on, then give me a heads up and I’ll investigate. Don’t deviate too much from your primary tasks. Protecting the Asset and the other victims and getting them out is our priority.”

“Is that what you’ll be doing?” Bobbi asked. “Finding out what the fuck they want with the OAPs?”

“Yup … I’ll be going after this Burksi guy – and Ward.” She glanced again at Ari as she finished, her eyes automatically seeking her out and without thinking Daisy added, “Ar- _Halysis_ will be coming with me.”

This got a reaction out of her friend. She lifted her head slowly and met Daisy’s gaze with an arched eyebrow, as if saying _you sure about that?_ Daisy turned sharply away and found Lincoln watching her. “You sure about that Daisy?”

Daisy shivered; his words echoing Ari’s unspoken ones. “Yes,” she snapped, answering them both and ending the conversation there. “I’m sure. Bobbi – how long ‘till we get there?”

“Half hour? Maybe more?”

She grunted and silence descended upon the jet. The usual tension that permeated the air before an op coupled with the obvious distrust Lincoln had for Ari. Mack touched her shoulder and pointed to a pile of material neatly folded on a seat that Daisy hadn’t noticed. “Fitz had it finished a couple of days ago,” he said. “Thought you might need it.”

“Does it have all the shiz he said it would?”

Mack shrugged. “There’s a note.”

Taking the seat beside the material, Daisy picked up the note on top and read Fitz’s message.

_So it’s the leather-Kevlar blend like we discussed. Heart monitor and blood pressure gauges incorporated so we can make sure you aren’t killing yourself. Flame-retardant and water-resistant, but if you jump into a lake or walk through a volcano then you’ve only got yourself to blame. It’s quite heavy so if that’s a problem with restricting movement and such then there are other options available to us. Such as spandex. Let me know what you think of the gauntlets. They should help focus your power. If you don’t like the design then that’s your own fault._

_Fitz._

Daisy she stared at the super-suit for a full minute before casting her eyes round the jet; Mack was talking to Bobbi and Hunter while Lincoln had his head tilted back against the side of the plane with his eyes closed. Oh well, it wasn’t like she was going to get any more privacy than this. Standing up, she stripped down to her underwear before beginning the task of pulling on the brand new suit Fitz had constructed for her. He’d included a pair of gym shorts – the spandex type – and a vest of the same material to wear underneath the suit.

Fitz was right when he warned that the suit was heavy. However, after jumping a few times on the spot to settle the material and her limbs in place, Daisy figured she could work with it. The idea of a spandex-based suit didn’t appeal all that much to her – this wasn’t a fashion parade after all (although someone should probably tell that to the Avengers). There were no specially designed boots for Daisy, just the ones she usually used.

Lacing them up, Daisy straightened and slipped on the gauntlets, flexing her fingers and wrists to loosen the joints and make sure they fitted right. She’d endured several fittings and measurements while helping Fitz design the suit; it had been a way for him to distract himself from Simmons’ absence.

Grinning and peering at her reflection in the blank screens behind the co-pilot’s chair, Daisy couldn’t help but be impressed. Fitz had made her look real badass, and with her new haircut … she felt like at least – finally – _looked_ the part, and that, she knew, was the half of it. If you look and feel the part then you’re half way there. She wrapped a belt round her waist and secured the holster in place; gun – safety on – slid in inside the holster and spare ammo in easy reach on the belt. She was ready to go.

Daisy shook her head and – and she wasn’t sure why she was surprised – her gaze was yet again drawn to Ari. Daisy took in her friend’s scuffed boots, ripped jeans and tatty oversized sleeveless hoodie; they were as much a costume or suit of armour as Daisy’s brand spanking new super-suit was. Daisy wondered if the Ari she had met as a child had been wearing a mask then too, if she had been sheathed in a persona and costume as she was now …

Daisy decided it wouldn’t matter. Ari was Ari.

They landed a couple of minutes later. Lincoln and Mack headed off first, followed by Bobbi and Hunter. Daisy made her way down the ramp only to find her friend wasn’t hot on her heels as she should be. Turning, Daisy felt like she had slammed into a brick wall at the sight of Ari wriggling into a pair of worn leather pants. She wasn’t wearing anything else; her back smooth and toned and lightly tanned.

“Shouldn’t you be focusing on the surrounding terrain rather than my half naked body Dayz?” Ari quipped without turning, rummaging through her duffle and pulling out a boring old tank top, a sports bra, and what looked like boxer’s gauze. Biting her tongue and going red at what her friend was implying, Daisy didn’t reply. Nor did she ask, as she turned her back to stare at the surrounding terrain, why Ari had seen fit to wait until _now_ to change. “You not jumping at the chance to demand those pesky answers?”

Ah. So _that_ was why she had waited.

“If you had told me the truth from the get go we wouldn’t be in this situation.” Daisy muttered darkly. She avoided looking at her friend, not because it was easier to be angry at her, but because Ari’s body was dotted with faint white marks she realised now were scars. Nasty scars, by the looks of some of them, deep and lingering. She avoided looking because the scars – scars Daisy doubted were inflicted by accident – did nothing to hide the fact that Ari was _hot_.

And Daisy wasn’t sure what she should do about that.

“Maybe I never told you the truth to protect you. Have you considered that?” Ari asked, her words reminding Daisy they were in the middle of an argument – or about to be.

Daisy let her anger over take her. “Protect me from what? From being loved?” she spat. They faced each other, Ari now wearing a white sports bra, yet no tank top, with her hands and wrists expertly wrapped in the white boxer’s gauze.

“From being a monster.” In contrast to Daisy’s anger, Ari was calm. Unperturbed. In control.

“You honestly believe that, had I stayed with them, that I would have ended up like them?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the truth.”

Daisy snorted. “You a fucking clairvoyant?”

“No – but my grandmother has some ability to that effect.” She shook her head as she bent to lace up her boots. “I know enough to read the signs of what has been in order to guess what will be. I’ve been around for a long time Daisy Johnson … I have seen things you would never believe and witnessed things, the likes of which you will never comprehend. If you had stayed you would have become just like them – and it would have taken the Avengers to stop you.”

Daisy wanted to speak, to protest, but Ari didn’t give her a chance. She stood and pulled on her tank – white, again … Daisy wondered at that – still talking, still explaining without explaining.

“You don’t understand – or realise – just how powerful you are. Or what you can do. You don’t know the threat you pose just from existing. If I had known what was going down …” she fixed Daisy with a hard, unyielding stare, and in that moment, she wasn’t Daisy’s friend. “I’d probably have killed you in order to stop you from entering that Kree Temple.”

With that, she marched off down the ramp and out of sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty then. What did you lovely people think of that? It's longer than the other chapters but I couldn't help that. 
> 
> Please tell me what you thought? It's a great help to know you're enjoying reading and it encourages me to get my arse in gear to write the next chapter for you wonderful people :)


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